Return on Investment
by Kaesteranya
Summary: Multi-chaptered fic, AU from Chapters 200 or so in the manga and a possible look at the future, ten years from now. What would you do, after all, if all the decisions you've made in the past ten years haven't exactly brought you where you want to be?
1. Prologue

**Prologue.**

The day was a blur of uniforms and voices, of the heat of the gymnasium and the cool breeze through the cherry blossoms, of nicotine jitters and waiting for the day to shut the fuck up and get over itself. His interaction with Tsuna that day was, as always, by distance: nine heads apart in the line to the first morning assembly of the year, three rows behind during their classes, the span of an arm as they took their lunch and twenty-five meters away (inclusive of crowd) after it was all over. He thought about getting close, maybe stepping up for a quick word or a glimpse of his smile, but something about the way his boss looked the moment Kyoko Sasagawa was in the vicinity made him think twice.

Gokudera Hayato headed for the rooftop of the Namimori's main building, hands in the pockets of his pants, eyes on the steps he took on the way up. The grounds were deserted, and the whole place was awash with the colors of the setting sun; classes had ended some time ago, and none of the clubs had scheduled any activities due to the fact that the school year – their last year in high school – was just beginning. Normally, Gokudera would have been home hours ago, or at least wandering through Namimori, sometimes dropping in for a quick round at the game center or stopping by any one of the many food stalls at street corners for a bite before making his way back to his apartment. Something, however, had made him stay behind to haunt his school's corridors rather than the town's alleyways, and the mere thought of his unit made him feel claustrophobic. He told himself that it had nothing to do with the Tenth, with realizing that his boss sees him without seeing him, or watching him smile at somebody else. Sawada Tsunayoshi could do him no wrong.

It was almost liberating, pushing the door back and taking that first step out onto the rooftop: he felt the weight of the day melt away from his shoulders the moment he got that first gulp of fresh air, even if its chill – a sign of the season to come – cut at his lungs. Gokudera lingered a moment just past the doorway, eyes seeking out the exact height of the sky above him in the oranges, pinks and reds of the day's end: he hadn't realized how high the sky was until that moment. He had fallen out of the habit of looking up recently. The boy eventually dropped his eyes, and approached the chain-link fence, padding himself down in search of his second pack for the day.

"I was wondering when you'd come up."

"What the – oh. It's you."

Yamamoto Takeshi merely grinned in response, oblivious, as always, to any negativity on Gokudera's part. The dark-haired boy was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, back against the fence, hands occupied with stuffing his mouth full of the contents of the bento box in his lap. Gokudera scoffed. "You scared the shit out of me," the silver-haired boy muttered as he turned towards the skyline. He pulled a cigarette out of his pack with his teeth.

"Ahaha… sorry?"

"You're never sorry. What are you still doing here anyway?" He was being insufferable again and he knew it, but it didn't feel right, not being rude to his fellow Guardian in every other sentence. Yamamoto, of course, laughed that just that sort of laugh that pissed him off the most, as if he hadn't heard a thing.

"I was waiting for you."

There it was again, that ghost of the something lethal lurking just behind the smile of a baseball freak/oblivious idiot/thick-headed swordsman: it must have been in that particular curl of his lip, or maybe somewhere in his eyes. Gokudera tore himself away before he could end up staring for too long. Yamamoto was sure to notice; their time together in the future had taught Gokudera that Yamamoto apparently noticed a lot of things, more than he would ever say to anybody. Looking away quick enough, however, meant that Yamamoto couldn't call him on it. That was all Gokudera needed.

"…Idiot."

"Hungry?" Yamamoto turned, pulled out a second bento, smiled again. "You didn't eat much during lunch."

Gokudera answered him by plopping down and reaching for the lunchbox. Their fingers touched, just once.

* * *

They talked about all of the usual things – or more like, Yamamoto talked a lot, and Gokudera interjected every now and then, to either correct him or insult him (or both). They talked about classes, training, summer homework, where they'd gone off to over the vacation. They did not talk about where they had been before that, or about freedom, or choices, or rings, or responsibility. It wasn't that they weren't able to speak of it – previous experience had, in fact, taught them that the moment they started on _those_ subjects, the words never seemed to stop coming. It was more like they weren't supposed to, because the last member of their trio – the one who had brought them together in the first place – was absent, and without him around there was no telling where they'd end up the moment they opened their mouths. Hence, Gokudera had every right to worry the moment Yamamoto suddenly went from mundane baseball talk to the downright unspeakable.

"You're never going to tell him, are you?"

Eight words and he already wanted Yamamoto to shut up, because every word brings him back to classroom encounters and rumpled beds, to confused kissing behind the dugout and hand jobs in the bathroom. The story of them had begun with them staying up late one night to cram a school project. It had taken teenaged curiosity over the sake Yamamoto's father had brought home from Hokkaido and a stupid comment from the Yamamoto's end of the field, observations on Gokudera's behavior that he really could have done without. Of that night, he told himself that he remembered nothing but anger (white hot) and lips (wet kissing). He buried the rest with choice words and cigarettes.

"It's okay, you know… I can take it. I'll deal with whatever you want to throw at me. It shouldn't be a problem if we do it like that, right?"

"We don't have anything."

"You don't have to love me the same way you love him."

"We don't have _anything_."

"I'm fine with it, really."

_You don't know that,_ Gokudera wanted to say, but doing that was like acknowledging that they had something when he had already insisted, as he did many times before, that they didn't. The boy stood up instead, and walked towards that halfway point between the fence and his only way out. He did not want to turn around, did not want to face Yamamoto and end up studying the deepening shadows in the other boy's eyes.

He did not trust himself anymore; he had stopped months back, when he had reached out across a kitchen table in search of an answer and found nothing but Sawada Tsunayoshi's bewildered brown eyes and the makings of a betrayal. _Never again_, he had told himself at that point, and he had made it work by keeping his distance. But he also told himself the same thing every time he had felt the need to hide in Yamamoto's arms, and he was still in the process of remembering how to let go.

"I can wait for you, if that's what you need. I'm always going to be right here."

And the only answer Yamamoto received was the slightest turn of Gokudera's head, a flash of green eyes, a shock of silver hair, footsteps, and the swing of a metal door, lighter than their words.

It was only when he was back in that tiny little room with a bed he never really slept in and the fridge full of food that he never really ate that Gokudera remembered the taste of cheap sushi/the smell of Yamamoto's skin and allowed himself to cry.


	2. Ch1, Why I'm not where you are

**Chapter One: Why I'm not where you are.**

**

* * *

  
**

_Six years later, Japan Side._

He found himself remembering Namimori – or more specifically, the rooftop of the school where he had spent years of his childhood in – at the oddest times. Of course, he had long realized that he wasn't like most people, and thus 'odd' needed some qualifications. In that particular case, 'odd' meant moments where he wasn't supposed to be using his head, where he should have been completely immersed in instinct, in the realm of the physical: the split second between a pitcher's toss and his last big swing, the heartbeat before he had to gun for the next base. He did not normally mind, because those odd recollections usually helped him win the game at hand for his team. Today been no exception.

"…All right, Yuu-chan, up and at em…"

Yamamoto Takeshi slipped his arms underneath his teammate's armpits and lifted the smaller man up as gently as he could; Tajima Yuuichirou only snorted in response, and his head lolled back and around, prompting Yamamoto to scramble to straighten him up rather than risk having him burp or puke in his face. Their years together in the Hanshin Tigers had taught Yamamoto to never doubt Tajima when it came to drinking whole battalions of well-wishers and teammates under the table, but he also knew that they had celebrated their victory – their last for the season, and the one that had won them the championship for the third year in a row – just a little too well this time around. The fact that Tajima had pulled a lampshade over his head and started on the _chinko_ jokes was proof enough.

His cellular phone started ringing right when Yamamoto was in the middle of navigating through mountains of pizza boxes, beer bottles at a thousand different degrees of empty or full and the huddled or sprawled islands of sleeping teammates. Yamamoto ignored it to the best of his abilities, as he wanted to focus on getting Tajima to the couch first and making sure the little guy would at least be _somewhat_ comfortable before jogging to the fridge for a bottle of water. He made it out of the house and answered his phone, just as the caller made a second attempt at contacting him.

"**Oi, what took you so long? You with a girl or something?"**

"Ahaha… I was last week, if it counts."

"**How was she?"**

"Win the championship next season and I just might tell you."

Haruna Motoki chuckled on the other end of the line. Yamamoto took in a deep whiff of the night air and decided that it really was a nice night to be up and about. The batter cradled his phone between the crook of his neck and his shoulder as he fiddled with his bottle. He'd never tell his coach this (the man loved his booze and had the propensity to judge people who didn't love it as much as he did a little too quickly), but what he loved most about their after-parties was when the actual booze stopped flowing and he got to drink something more to his tastes.

"**I didn't catch you on the way out. I wanted to ask about what you said this afternoon."**

"Ah."

"**So it's true then? You're leaving?"**

"I'll only miss a month of the season. Maybe a little more, if something comes up."

"**It's going to be boring without you around."**

"You'll still have Tajima."

"**It's not the same if there's just one of you Tigers to knock down!"**

Yamamoto chuckled. If there was one thing that he appreciated about the world of sports, it's the fact that it was the only world where rivalries bred long-lasting friendships that _didn't _require a regular dose of death and destruction to maintain. A dugout the occasional phone call was more than enough.

"**So tell me why you're going before the rumor mill makes me think all sorts of weird stuff about you."**

"A friend of mine's getting married."

"_**Haa? **_**And you're leaving for almost eight months just for **_**that**_**?"**

"Um… he's a really, _really_ good friend of mine?"

"**What are you, his wedding planner?"**

"No, but I'm probably going to be his planner's lackey until the big day arrives."

"**I don't get you, man."**

Yamamoto laughed again. "I better go," he said into the receiver, after a small pause. "Want anything from Italy?"

"**A David apron!"**

"A… what?"

"**You'll find out when you get there. Can't miss it!"**

"Ahaha, all right, whatever you say."

Yamamoto hung up as he made his way into the house, retracing his steps (carefully) through the carnage in order to retrieve his bag. He took one last look at his teammates before he stepped out, almost certain that he wasn't going to have that kind of party where he was going. The crowd back in Italy was an entirely different set of people, and he'd have to keep up appearances the moment he arrived.

The apartment had been a gift from the team manager in the second year of his career, a sort of Thank You for Single-handedly Turning the Team Around Gift. Prior to Yamamoto's arrival (and later, Tajima's), the Tigers had been on a losing streak against the Giants – the manager was thoroughly convinced that his batter was the main reason why they were doing spectacularly as of late, and was constantly asking Yamamoto whether the apartment was being put to good use (i.e. if he was housing some nice girl there that nobody, not even the gossip columnists, knew about). Yamamoto wasn't about to tell him that he barely set foot in the place whenever he was in Koushien, and there was no girl there – only loads of things that his manager was sure to find very boring, although he couldn't say the same for the local authorities. This week had been the exception, and it wasn't just because of the game. There were lots of things to pack up, lots of things that needed proper disguises in order to go past the borders that he'd be crossing by tomorrow.

Four in the morning, and Yamamoto found himself sitting cross-legged under the light with a can of iced coffee just at his knee, surrounded by boxes neatly flipped and taped and stamped with that a very familiar crest. He was far past the point where the sight of his bed would have been tempting, and somewhere close to that stage where sleeping was probably pointless, given the time that he was planning on leaving town. He knew, though, that the road home was a long one, and he was going to need as many hours as he could get.

It hit him again, sometime after a warm shower and right before he rested his head on his pillow: the feel of a chain-link fence against his back, the smell of Italian cigarettes, the image of sad green eyes. There had been so much between that and where he was now, so many other moments for him and that other to be alone by being together, but that one conversation at the rooftop of Namimori Academy had been the last time they had ever been completely honest with each other. Back then he had still hoped that things would change. Now, six years later and more than an ocean away, Yamamoto fell asleep, knowing full well that they probably wouldn't.

(The difference, however, between the him back then and the him now, was that maybe this time, he really _was _all right with it.)

* * *

_Six years later, Italy Side._

He doesn't really think much about Japan all that much anymore, or the way things used to be: he stopped doing that when he discovered that remembering the past was counter-productive to living in the now, protecting the now. There were many ghosts there, too many possibilities and maybes to consider. Far and enough that common people had always carried their own fair share of regrets on their shoulders – what more someone like him, someone who was always a step ahead of the rest, who couldn't help but see life as a set of endless, ever-expanding set of patterns? So, to stop himself from going crazy by considering the could-have-beens versus the should-have-beens, he had simply opted to stop thinking about it altogether. It wouldn't be the first time that he had pretended that he was a punk with no past and an uncertain future. And, when people asked, the excuse he always had at hand was that Japan was Hibari Kyouya's territory, and, Family or no, he really couldn't stand that guy.

Gokudera Hayato squatted beside the nearest body and turned the corpse over, checking to see if the dead guy had a lighter on him. He needed to smoke now that it was all over, and true to his rotten luck, his lighter had gotten lost somewhere between killing people and killing some more people. Given the fact that he had spent most of his evening running all over the compound, he figured that it was useless to try to look for it. That annoyed him, just a little. It had been a damned good lighter. The silver-haired mafioso eventually found what he was looking for and stood up, fumbled around in search of his pack, tried and failed to light up around three times before it worked out; the nicotine jitters predictably made things difficult. A disapproving growl sounded from the other end of the room. Gokudera looked up, cocking an eyebrow at the source.

"…What are you looking at me for?"

Uri only narrowed his eyes, looked at the cigarette perched on Gokudera's mouth, and growled again. The big cat had curled up in one corner with a dying man pinned beneath one paw; the flame at the tip of his tongue and along his spine flickered, brighter than all of the other sources of the light in the room. Gokudera turned away with a rueful shake of his head.

"Don't worry, Uri. I doubt cancer can kill me even if it wanted to."

His box creature was not content with his answer (it was obvious in the way the flaming feline's eyes narrowed only further and a deeper sound rumbled out from his throat), but this was a long-standing argument with them, and Gokudera always won by ignoring the disapproval and lighting up another.

The first three people who attempted to call Gokudera in the minutes that followed were pointedly ignored – he knew, without looking at his phone, that they couldn't have been anyone else other than Basil, Shamal and Bianchi. Basil was probably out to nag him about things that he had probably already taken care of; Shamal was likely bored and drunk, looking for a quick and stupid conversation about this-and-that-conquest or so-and-so-woman. As for Bianchi… Gokudera still wondered why his sister even bothered calling to check up on him after every one of his solo operations, given the fact that he tried to avoid speaking to her unless it was absolutely necessary. Gokudera, however, made sure to pick up the fourth call he received. He told himself that this was because this next caller was sure to whine if he didn't answer.

"**Bianchi wants me to tell you that you ought to learn how to answer your phone."**

"And I want you to tell my sister that I only answer relevant calls while I'm on the job."

"**You mean this call is relevant?"**

Gokudera only sighed. "Why are you still up, Lambo? Kids like you should be in bed."

"**You're not the only one who's got stuff to do tonight!"**

Lambo Bovino had come a long way from being the snot-nosed, bovine crybaby that Gokudera had met back in Namimori. While the cow prints, the ridiculous perkiness and the irrational love for exploding things had not really changed, Lambo had, at least, learned to perform more and snivel less during the ten years he had spent as the Vongola Family's number one sniper and the Tenth's bodyguard. Because he was the boss' right hand man, Gokudera had spent most his career working closely with the other Guardians, forging connections that went beyond their individual differences. His connection with Lambo, however, ran a little deeper than usual. There were, after all, times when the Thunder Guardian felt more like family than his own sister did.

Gokudera, of course, would never admit that out loud, and most especially not to Lambo. If he did, he was never going to hear the end of it.

They continued their conversation as Gokudera made his way out of the compound with Uri right at his heels, talking about family matters as the Storm Guardian moved through blood-splattered hallways and blasted corridors. He and Uri were no longer alone with the dead – a small contingent of men from the main house had arrived, moving in to handle the clean-up in Gokudera's place. He interrupted his conversation with Lambo every now and then to give short and curt instructions, or to scold whoever happened to be doing something or the other wrong as he passed by. Jobs like this were things that the Tenth did _not_ need to do and did _not_ turn his eyes towards unless he didn't have a choice – Gokudera made sure of that. Nonetheless, he wasn't going to stand for things being less than perfect.

"**Y'know, Hayato-nii,"** said Lambo sometime later, after Gokudera was settled in the back seat of the car they had prepared for him and well on the way home, **"it's kind of amazing."**

"What is?"

"**We've been talking for the last thirty minutes, and you didn't mention the boss once! That's a new record for you!"**

"It's my _job_ to keep tabs on him."

"**But **_**I'm**_** the one who's **_**actually**_** watching over him right now, y'know. I've got his back too."**

Gokudera did not answer immediately; he leaned back, smoking through yet another cigarette, idly stroking Uri's head from where the big cat had laid it on his lap. The light from the streetlamps cut into the dark peace of the car at regular intervals, washing everything in odd yellow light for split seconds at a time.

"…How is he, though? The boss, I mean."

"**Pretty okay. The old fogeys had another debate over the Tomaso house, so Basil and I went with him since the others were busy."**

"And the meeting?"

"**No clue~ I was on sniper duty up on the roof!"**

"I see." Gokudera made a mental note to ask later, and be prepared to check the files if Tsuna did not feel comfortable with answering him. "Check on him later. I'll be home soon."

"**You're going to say that I'm being a nosy brat for this—"**

"That's because you _are_ one."

"—**but you worry about him too much."**

"Later, Lambo."

And Gokudera hung up, because it was the easier thing to do.

It was tempting to simply dump his stuff somewhere and crawl right into bed the moment he reached his room: given the fact that he had been up since two in the morning and doing operations much like the one he had come from since breakfast (which hadn't really been breakfast, more like cold eggs, colder toast and practically frozen bacon), he probably deserved it. One look at himself in the mirror, however, stopped him short. Gokudera stared, turned away with a curse to pull his shoes off and shove his jacket off his shoulders. He had _liked_ the shirt he was wearing… now it was ruined beyond repair. The women in the estate weren't going to try and wash _that_ much blood out, even if he begged them to. There was little that they could do against that many bullet holes either.

Hot water was, in his experience, supposed to help one out when one was past the point of bone-numbing exhaustion, but Gokudera could barely bring himself to relax underneath the jet of the shower head. The Storm Guardian lingered inside the stall for a long time, slumped forward, watching the water drain away just at his feet in a futile attempt to clear his head of the noise. By the time he remembered to step out, he had two hours before sunrise and the mandatory post-mission report still hadn't been done. He wasn't on any deadline beyond whatever he set for himself, but that was all that somebody like him needed in order to kick himself into action.

Gokudera was halfway to his desk when he discovered that his cigarettes were out, and the pack had been last in the ream. The half-Italian cursed, spent a few useless moments flailing about in search of a pack or a stick that he might have missed in the mess of papers, file cases and other paraphernalia that occupied every spare surface and then some in his study. It took some time before he finally slumped back in his seat, defeated, wondering if he should crack open that bottle of bourbon that Shamal had brought back from his latest trip to God-knows-where to see God-knows-which-mistress. His gaze strayed to the bottle and fell instead on the picture frame just at the corner, one of the only things still standing in his office. One look at the picture – a memento from his high school days, something Fuuta had insisted on taking and given to him just for the record – and Gokudera instantly regretted thinking about the bourbon. He focused on his work and the warmth of Uri curled up just at his feet instead, and did not look up until a maid called him hours later, for breakfast.

"C'mon, Uri."

He turned the frame and the frozen smiles of him, the boss and that one other person who used to (still) mattered to him face down on his way out. Gokudera Hayato was a man who did not need memories to make it through the way. Their weight did nothing but bring him down.


	3. Ch2, Take the long road and walk it

**Chapter Two. Take the long road and walk it.**

* * *

_Ten years ago._

The first thing Miura Haru did the moment they returned to their own time was go straight to Namimori Public Library and read up on six things: martial arts, weaponry, time travel, future technology, Namimori city plans and the mafia. She was not content with what she had been told back then, when they had been stuck in some sort of horrendous underground base and constantly in fear of falling under siege to mysterious, jet-propelled men and women in black suits. What little pseudo-knowledge she had gathered from watching all those films and reading all those comics could no longer save her, especially when she thought about the many other weird incidents surrounding Sawada Tsuyanoshi and his rag-tag team of friends. Haru was not a stupid girl, even if she certainly came off that way to some people (i.e. Gokudera), even if she had what others would call a ridiculous and improper obsession for all things criminal, even if her childhood dream involved becoming the wife of an Italian don. And she certainly hated feeling helpless.

After she had exhausted Namimori Public Library's stock, Haru moved on to researching on the Internet, trolling forums, asking the geekier ones in her class to teach her a few tricks about getting into sites that were inaccessible to the general public. She began taking notes, attempting to recall the snippets of conversation that she had overheard between Tsuna and any one of his friends, including that strange five-year-old who certainly didn't act like a five-year-old, now that she _really _thought about it. She cued in names (Vongola, Cavallone, Tomaso, Gesso, Giglionero, Estraneo), organizations (Cervello, Vendicare) and terms (Dying Will Flame, Mare Rings, Guardians, boxes, Arcobaleno), read on all the topics and related accounts voraciously, missed out on the weekly showing of The Sopranos in favor of scrounging around on details about the real thing. Her father often asked her what she was doing, and at one point, why she suddenly seemed so focused. Haru only smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and returned to her books.

The baby – Reborn – approached her about half a year later, just as she was drafting an e-mail to an Italian Journalism student whose thesis was an enthnographic study of the mafia world and how it was changing due to strange dabbling in the occult sciences. She looked up and reached for her box of Strawberry-flavored Pocky only to realize that it wasn't cardboard she was touching, but the soft wool of a well-tailored fedora. He was perched on her windowsill, munching on her snack.

"…Hey. I was going to eat that."

"I can have Tsuna buy you another. What are you doing, Miura Haru?"

"You probably know already, since you're here."

"Fair enough." The lizard on Reborn's shoulder (Haru remembered Tsuna calling it Leon, but she couldn't be certain) was staring at her with its large gold eyes. "Would you stop if I told you to?"

"No."

_Click_. Haru looked up, and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun. She knew for a fact that it wasn't a toy. She used to wonder.

"How about now?" the baby said, in a voice that didn't belong to a child at all. Haru felt her heart migrate from her chest up to somewhere in her throat on the inside, but on the outside, the girl merely blinked at the weapon, then up at Reborn.

"Children shouldn't be playing with guns, you know. Now if you'll excuse me, Reborn-san," she added as she turned away, "I'm busy trying to become your Family's next consigliore."

Up until now, Haru didn't know whether Reborn had left her because she had somehow impressed him or if he had been amused at the fact that she had, somewhere between their return from the future to their encounter in her room, slipped out of speaking in third person.

More time passed, more research was done. Then, on one fine afternoon Miura Haru climbed the steps to Namimori Academy's rooftop, marched over to where Sawada Tsuyanoshi and his friends were eating together, and threw down the huge binder containing all her research at his feet. He reacted accordingly (by shrieking a little and eyeing the binder like it was a live cobra), but Haru did not let it stir her. When Yamamoto laughed and Gokudera demanded to know what the hell she was on this time, she pretended that she didn't hear them. Reborn, on the other hand, didn't even blink. The baby's lizard was eying her again. Haru ignored it.

"H-H-H-H-Haru-san?!"

"I know almost everything that I need to know now," the girl said, with her hands on her hips and her eyes daring Tsuna to challenge her. "I'll need the rest of the answers from you, the moment I become a part of your family."

"W-wait—"

"Ahahaha, what's going on?"

"The _fuck_, you stupid woman! ARE YOU DISRESPECTING THE TENTH?"

"Um, Gokudera-kun, wait—"

"Yeah, Gokudera, you should take it easy. You hair might fall out or something, ahaha."

"SHUT UP, BASEBALL FREAK!"

"Y-Yamamoto…"

"You _will_ let me in, won't you?" Haru cut in, right through the noise. "I can't be one of your Guardians, and I still don't know much about all this box stuff, but somebody has to look out for you all on the legal end of things, right?"

And Reborn only moved to sip his coffee, hiding his smile beneath the rim of his mug.

* * *

_Six years later._

The first thing Haru did the moment she stepped out was take a deep gulp of the crisp, morning air. One might think that it was a little ironic how while she had been to parts of North America, all over Europe and to certain countries in Asia, she had never been to this part of Japan before. Given the strange directions that her life had taken after college, however, perhaps it wasn't too surprising.

"Would you like us to get you a drink, Ma'am?"

"Seriously, boys, I think I can get one for myself."

Haru flashed her head bodyguard a winning smile before turning away, walking towards the vending machine just a few feet away. It was a nice neighborhood, now that she was actually up and about, looking at things as they were and not through tinted car windows… it kind of reminded her of her hometown. She almost felt bad for breaking the peace with all the black cars and the men in shades and tailored suits. Tsuna, however, had insisted – or more like, _Gokudera_ hadinsisted, and had dutifully thrown the Tenth's name around in every sentence. There was little that people could do against the Storm Guardian once he had made up his mind about something, whether they happened to be a common lackey, a fellow Guardian, or the Tenth Consigliore of the Vongola.

The boys had just finished scrambling about by the time Haru had come back with her can of black coffee (she would have preferred strawberry milk, but it wasn't good for the image), and were positioned in all conceivable corners, nooks and crannies. A "secure perimeter", or whatever they called it, and it had all of the people in the surrounding houses peering out at them through the curtains, wondering if some political delegate was going to pass through the area. Haru made a mental note to contact the local press and keep things quiet at all costs, then call Gokudera and tell him how much of a paranoid idiot he could be at times. It wouldn't do to damage the reputation of Japan's next big import to the Major Leagues that early on in the game. The young woman leaned her back against the side of her car, cracked the can open with one finger, crossed one foot in front of the other and looked off towards the apartment in question. The door opened a few moments later, and Yamamoto Takeshi peeked out, reminding Haru that yes, it _was_ quite possible for a guy to look like a cold-blooded killer even if he was dressed in nothing but a white t-shirt, jogging pants and rubber slippers. He spotted her, however, and the laughing baseball fanatic that she had grown up with shone through, quickly replacing the image of something dangerous with something good and harmless.

"I meant to come alone," she said to him as he walked up. "They refuse to let me drive though."

"Hey, don't worry about it. This'll give the neighbors something to talk about, at least."

Yamamoto hugged her; Haru kissed him on both cheeks, remembering only a moment later that they weren't really in Italy and Yamamoto was an old friend who didn't need that sort of greeting. He pointed out the obvious. She laughed. Later on, when Haru pulled back to take the sight of Yamamoto in and watch him hide the Rain Guardian behind his smile, she couldn't help but ask herself if it was really right, pulling him back into their world without so much as a please and thank you. Their boss, however, had big things going on, things even bigger than his own wedding. He needed people like Yamamoto around, ones that could clear the way for him using smooth words and traceless killings. Besides, it had been three long years since people over at the mansion had heard the Rain Guardian's infectious laugh.

***

They sat on the curb together sometime after Yamamoto had changed into something more respectable for the road, and caught up on other matters as Haru's bodyguard detail took care of loading up all of the things that the family's Rain Guardian had prepared for the family. Yamamoto had not been completely out of touch over the past few years with the happenings in Italy, but Tsuna, in a bid to leave his Rain Guardian to focus on his career in the professional circuit of Japanese baseball, had made it a point to keep things as simple and as vague as possible. Problems that the family encountered, for one, were only mentioned to Yamamoto well after they had been dealt with by someone else. Although this had troubled Yamamoto in the first year, the swordsman had grown to appreciate Tsuna's efforts to keep him on reserve at the fringes rather than in the center of the action later on. It gave him breathing space, something that he hadn't had the privilege of enjoying during their years in high school and at the start of his career.

"…That's all that I can tell you on the fly," Haru said some time afterward. "You're probably better off seeing the rest for yourself when we get there." The young woman paused as one of her bodyguards came up to her with a whispered missive, and she sent him off with a wave. "I guess we're finished here," she said, turning to her companion. "All set to go?"

"I have been since four in the morning." Yamamoto only laughed off her puzzled look, and stood up. "We're not taking the train, are we?" he asked of Haru, as he offered her his hand.

"Nope… you're going to have to settle for a road trip with little old me and a whole bunch of mafioso all the way to Namimori."

"Ah. Security issues?"

"Partially. It's mostly because we kind of _have_ to delay. Spanner hasn't contacted me yet."

Now it was Yamamoto's turn to look confused. "Spanner?"

"Yep. We have to pick Hibari-san up after we swing by Namimori for the others. Spanner's kinda the only person in the family who knows where Hibari-san is these days, so if he's not calling – oh, but I guess I shouldn't really say that Spanner's with the family, since he technically isn't. Anyway—"

"…Wait, wait, slow down. Kyouya? And _Spanner_?"

Haru beamed.

"You've got this whole road trip and then some to think about how you're going to convince him to come home. Good luck?"

***

It was a five-hour drive to Namimori from where they were if they didn't make any stops, but Haru made it a point to go at a leisurely pace, pulling the whole entourage over at random towns or whatever landmark happened to strike her fancy along the road. Yamamoto took advantage of this for the first few hours by sleeping in the front seat, drifting on the faint strains of music floating out of the car speakers and Haru singing along at odd intervals, low and sweet and perfectly in tune. Haru's bodyguard detail had been nervous about leaving the two of them alone in one car, much less with Haru at the wheel – beyond the fact that it was against protocol to allow their ward to move around without at least three of them in her company, the young woman had apparently made quite the reputation for herself as "a mad devil-woman driver" (Haru's very own words) back in Italy. They were, however, quickly silenced by Yamamoto's winning smile and the reflection of the sunlight on the heavy ring he always wore on his batting hand. The Rain Guardian was around, and reports said that he could wake up at the drop of a dime, and he _wasn't _out of practice. The family's consigliore couldn't be in better hands.

Yamamoto woke up when they were four towns away from Namimori – he found himself alone in an empty car, staring blankly at the dashboard. They were parked at a rather provincial-looking gas station; the bodyguard detail was hanging out on the curb outside of the convenience store, sharing smokes and playing cards. Haru was over by another vending machine, completely oblivious to how the gas attendants were partially fumbling over their cars but mostly sending longing looks in her direction. In as much as they probably wanted to come around and chat with her, their better instincts must have told them that any woman with a battalion of guys in black suits was probably bad news for small-town boys like them.

"Oh, you're finally up! Did you sleep well?"

"Mm-hm."

"Wait, let me get you something to drink… Gatorade good by you?"

"Sure."

Haru sent a swift smile in Yamamoto's direction before turning back to the machine, fishing around in her purse for her wallet. The swordsman yawned and stretched as far as he could, working out the odd cricks and aches that came with sleeping in the car. He caught a few of the gas attendants looking in his direction, and he grinned at them, lifting his hand in a wave. They were bound to recognize him in a moment. Not too many baseball players had a facial scar like his.

"Here you go!"

Haru, ever chipper, drew him from his thoughts. "Aren't you worried?" she asked of him in a low voice, just as she pressed close and handed the bottle over. Apparently, she had been thinking the same thing he had.

"It doesn't matter at this point. Might as well get used to the old routine while I still can, right?" the swordsman opened his drink with a small laugh. "I'm a Vongola Guardian before I'm a baseball player, after all."

"But you don't have to be so obvious about it, especially if it'll hurt your career."

Yamamoto only smiled. He straightened up, heading for the car, dangling the car keys in Haru's direction. The young woman could only wonder how he had gotten a hold of it in what little contact they had had in the past few minutes, but this was the Rain Guardian she was looking at. He consistently denied any labels that people offered up in order to pin him down, and always made it a point to show others that what they were seeing was often only a front for something else, something far deeper than what he showed the rest of the world.

"I'll drive the rest of the way, if that's all right with you," Yamamoto said then, drawing Haru out of her thoughts. "I kinda miss being behind the wheel." When he turned to her with another smile and a hopeful look, the consigliore only giggled.

"Sure."

***

"Ahaha, wait… tell me you're joking. You're joking, right?"

"About what? The holy water or the tailoring thing?"

"Both."

"I'm dead serious, Yamamoto-kun! Gokudera-kun's going crazy over this wedding thing. Somebody has to make him slow down!"

"You must have been really pissed about the tailoring."

"OF COURSE I AM. WHOEVER HEARD OF THE GROOMS AND THE BEST MAN HAVING BETTER MADE CLOTHES THAN THE BRIDESMAIDS AND THE MAID OF HONOR?"

They had moved on from catching up on what the both of them had been up to lately (Yamamoto's current run on the professional baseball circuit and Haru's studying and travelling with the Ninth Vongola Head's consigliore) to Tsuna and Kyoko's wedding, which was the main reason why they and many other members of the family were dropping everything in order to fly back to Italy. True to their family's reputation, the wedding preparations – as with all things – were predictably crazy back in the Vongola Mansion. Almost everyone in the family (and some members outside of their group) seemed to want to have a say in the way things were supposed to play out on the big day, and hardly any of them wanted to compromise.

"I kinda want to see all the bottles that he managed to gather though. He went to chapels and cathedrals all over Europe, right?"

"Yeah… he even went to this monastery up at Mt. Engelberg for a sample! I mean, you have to ski through the Alps to get to that place!"

Yamamoto chuckled. "Well," he said, with his eyes on the road and a smile on his face, "Tsuna means a lot to him."

Haru blinked. She watched Yamamoto carefully as he shifted gears, cruising into the lane that would later lead them to the exit down to Namimori. There was strength in those arms, well-concealed both by their outward appearance and Yamamoto's demeanor. Hidden, like many, many other things that Yamamoto felt, or thought about. Haru, however, had spent the past ten years of her life learning how to read people the way one could read a book, with the said, the unsaid, and everything in between. Her companion was much harder to get than most, but the young woman had, at least for this case, some evidence and a lot of experience where her own skills fell short.

"Ne…"

"Mm?"

"You and Gokudera-kun haven't talked much at all lately, huh?"

"It depends on your definition of 'talk'."

"Okay then. How about we say that 'talk' means something more than the customary 'hi' and 'hello' exchange, and a little past the 'how are you?' and 'I'm fine' answers."

"If that's the case, then no, not since the last time I was in Italy."

"Three years then."

"Mm-hm."

"Doesn't that make things difficult? You know, if they've got a job for you and all."

"Tsuna always calls me personally whenever something needs to get done down here. If it isn't him, it's Reborn."

"Oh."

They were cruising down familiar streets now, driving through a quiet part of Namimori that never seemed to change even if a good part of the rest of the city had. They did not speak again, at least not until they had pulled up in front of their old middle school. Haru took a moment out to send her entourage off with a number of instructions before stepping out of the car.

"I'll go and call Kyoko… she's still teaching her classes, I think." Haru shut the door, stretched with visible relief, then promptly popped her head back in through the open passenger window. "He doesn't really talk much about you either," she said, leveling Yamamoto with a solemn look. Yamamoto only smiled.

"I guess I'll park the car then."

"You do that. See you in a bit."

And as she pulled back and stood on the curb, watching Yamamoto drive off, Haru told herself that if all men, gay or otherwise, could be as thick-headed about things as Yamamoto and Gokudera were, then she was most definitely going to stay single for the rest of her life.


	4. Ch3, Swimming backwards

**Chapter Three. Swimming backwards, with your eyes closed.**

* * *

_Ten years ago._

If anyone were to ask her and require a complete and honest answer, Kyoko Sasagawa would have to say that she hadn't _really_ noticed Tsuyanoshi Sawada or his past efforts to win her over all that much. She might have also taken a little more interest given the fact that her brother always spoke highly of him – Ryohei _did_ have a very bad habit of exaggerating and having somewhat limited qualifiers when describing a person ("TSUNA IS EXTREME! LIKE EXPLODING DINOSAURS!"), but Kyoko knew her brother well enough to know that for him to lavish somebody with praises meant that the person in question had their heart in the right place. Hence, for a good long while, things stayed the way they were: Tsuna-kun was the nice boy whom she hung out with because he wasn't all that bad, no matter what the people at school said about him.

Things took a very different direction after their very wild "field trip" to what Haru insisted was the future (although Kyoko had not believed her at the time that she was saying it). Right when Tsuna seemed very close to becoming a permanent fixture right at Kyoko's peripheral vision, the boy vanished altogether… were it not for the fact that she still saw him around, Kyoko might have thought that he had transferred schools, or left town altogether. It took her a while to call Tsuna on it partially because of Hana (her best friend firmly believed that Tsuna was hardly worth her attention), but mostly because it took some time for her to realize that things were changing in ways that she really couldn't ignore.

It started with all the little stuff: his stutter was gone, his clothes were a step above 'decent-looking', his hair no longer looked like the head of an old broomstick, his posture was improving, and (heaven forbid) he was participating actively in the classroom and in big school activities. Oddly, it was her girl classmates who noticed it first – they tittered about it to her whenever he wasn't around and she was, because back then it had been obvious to everyone but Kyoko how much the resident loser of their batch had liked her. They said simpering things about true love and second chances, trying, in their usual way, to pair people together in proper _shoujo _manga fashion. Kyoko barely noticed it; she was a little too busy wondering how it happened that _they_ had noticed that Tsuna was changing before she had, given the fact that they were supposed to be good friends.

The positive effect that Tsuna had on her older brother followed soon after. Before he had met Tsuna, Ryohei did not seem interested in much of anything beyond boxing. He seemed to flourish in Tsuna's company, finding a cooler and more level-headed center amidst all of his drive and passion, a place from which he could start from in order to learn how to control himself better and find more focus – he also began to take his studies a lot more seriously, which had always been a small point of contention between the Sasagawa siblings. It was after Kyoko had established that Tsuna was, indeed, the one to thank for her brother's change of heart that she decided to start joining them for lunch. Tsuna had seemed reluctant to indulge her at first (odd, given how he used to be so eager to jump at every chance to spend time with her), but Ryohei's cajoling and Kyoko's amazing cooking eventually changed his mind.

Of course, being part of the group again meant seeing how the rest of them had changed firsthand. Haru launched herself into a whole new field of study – law, something that Kyoko would have never seen her friend getting into in the past. Gokudera stopped sleeping in class, curbed his smoking habit and started swearing less (although he had the tendency to go back to both the swearing like a sailor and smoking like a chimney parts when Tsuna _wasn't_ around, but the effort _was_ there). Lambo and I-pin started behaving themselves a little better around the house without being prompted to. Chrome – the girl from Kokuyo – slowly began to warm up around them, and started hanging out with the group. Yamamoto did not seem to change too much, but that was mostly because he had already been the most level-headed one out of all of them (albeit a little dense – or so Kyoko had thought). There was also this strange feeling that seemed to surround the whole group, as though their very bizarre "field trip" had taught them what it really meant to be friends. Sometimes, however, Kyoko would come across of them sitting in the kitchen of Tsuna's house, heads together, expressions solemn every time one of them looked up to glance at the calendar. Since everything else seemed to be more than fine, Kyoko was content with letting it pass.

She answered him in their second year of high school, even though he had technically never asked her – it had been forced out of both of them by an unfortunate incident involving some jock from another school out to make Kyoko "his girl" whether she liked it or not. Voiced protests on her end ("I am NOT your girl!"), Reborn of all people floating around somewhere ("My loser student is always going to need my guidance, isn't he?"), a Freudian slip on Tsuna's part ("PROTECT MY KYOKO AS IF I WERE TO DIE!"), Ryohei threatening to beat the idiot up ("EXTREMELY!"), Kyoko kicking the offending party in the nuts instead followed by Tsuna pummeling him a bit, limping home, stammered apologies in the living room (mostly from Tsuna's end about gallivanting around in boxer shorts), and then:

"So, um, I kinda really meant what I said back there—"

"And so did I—"

"—Even though I never really said anything before or looked like I was interested before—"

"That's okay, maybe I didn't notice—"

"Wouldyouliketobemygirlfriend?"

"IsitallrightifIaskyoutobemyboyfriend?"

And that was that. Hana would not let her live down the fact that they had popped the question to each other at exactly the same time for a good, long while.

Tsuna proved to be a very sweet and attentive boyfriend, and because the good changes kept on coming, Kyoko became inclined to ignore the first few danger signals she received during their remaining years in high school. Incriminating things in her brother's room? Probably props for the school play. Tsuna carrying a gun around? He _did_ mention how dangerous things were getting these days, surely he was never ACTUALLY going to fire the thing. Yamamoto and Gokudera, injured? They had pretty rough extra-curricular activities, and Yamamoto was always talking about some sort of crazy, live action role-playing game that they participated in at least once a week. Perhaps things just got a _little _out of hand at times. Boys will be boys and all that jazz.

(Her brother had also mentioned something about Gokudera's EXTREME PIANO PLAYING! habits, although Kyoko, for once in her life, was not sure whether she should believe him.)

Come college, however, Kyoko knew that something was definitely up. For one, there was Tsuna's regular "trips" abroad – he almost never went with his parents, and he always dodged the question whenever Kyoko attempted to ask him exactly where he went. For another, there were the occasional weird phone calls he would get in the middle of their dates, ones that he answered in Italian (and apparently, he could speak that language really, really well). If Tsuna's behavior wasn't already enough to consider, there was the fact that her own brother began traveling a lot also – he explained away his injuries every single time, spinning up stories of tournaments and fight clubs and conferences on self-defense. Kyoko was always tempted to point out that bullet wounds and cuts from sharp edges didn't SEEM like the sort of stuff that professional fighters were supposed to get from tournaments, but she could never bring herself to mention it. A part of her, she had realized at that point, honestly wanted to think that all was well, and believe Tsuna whenever he assured her that it was nothing and everything was a-okay.

Kyoko's real wake-up call came from a very odd source and semi-blast from the past. She, Hana and Haru had been driving back home from a party when a police barricade had them pull over. The cops had cleared all of the cars just ahead of them, so the girls had not thought that anything would happen to them. Their records were totally clear.

"Kyoko Sasagawa, you will need to step out of the car."

"E-eh? But—"

The policeman leveled her with a look, repeated his instruction and opened the driver side door. When he saw how much she hesitated, he dragged her out by the arm and reached for the handcuffs at his belt, ignoring Haru and Hana's shouted protests. Kyoko was right on the brink of kicking him when a cold, familiar voice cut in.

"Let her go, officer."

Hibari Kyouya was standing there, watching the officer through narrowed, languid eyes. Kyoko vaguely remembered wondering why all of the other policemen in the area were suddenly giving them a wide breadth, and why Hibari had his tonfa out.

"Her record is clean."

"Who the hell are you, kid?"

The former prefect reached into his pocket and pulled his wallet out, flashing a badge.

"I'm your superior officer, herbivore." The words were humorless, but Hibari's lips turned upwards, just so, in a crooked smile. "Now, release her, unless you want me to makeyou do it myself."

"What happened back there?" Kyoko asked later, after their car was well past the barricade. They parked it just at the bridge connecting the neighborhood to the city proper, watching the police continue their work from their vantage point.

"They were targeting you. What does it look like?"

Hibari yawned; something about the gesture had struck her as predatory, even though the yellow fluff ball of a bird perched on his shoulder kind of ruined the image. The dark-haired young man was still as cold and as prickly as Kyoko remembered him being, back when he used to come over to their home to play with Ryohei (she still didn't know why he and her brother had stopped hanging out; Ryohei claimed that he didn't know either). There was, however, a fiercer edge to Hibari now, something that made Kyoko feel compelled to call him 'Hibari-san' rather than 'Kyo-kun', like she used to when she was younger.

"You'd best leave this area quickly, Sasagawa-san. They've got you marked."

Marked. One word, and things were quickly (and painfully) becoming clear to her. Haru's hand was on her arm but Kyoko was barely aware of it.

"…Where is Tsu-kun?"

Hibari gave her that sort of look that Kyoko would later realize as the one he reserved for particularly tasteless individuals when they had predictably displeased him. "I thought I told you to leave, Sasagawa-san," he said instead, in a low and irritated voice. "I don't have time to deal with you. Miura Haru—" and when he addressed Haru, Kyoko felt the other girl flinch beside her, "—go to Sawada's place and stay put. I have herbivores to kill."

The car ride was awkward on three counts: because Hana constantly demanded an explanation for what had just happened, because Haru constantly tried to act like nothing was wrong and because Kyoko herself had resolved to say nothing until they were at their destination. They found Ryohei pacing around in the living room, dressed up in the sort of suit that someone on his part-time salary wasn't supposed to have, speaking in straight, quick and flawless Italian when Kyoko knew for a fact that her brother used to be incapable of stringing two English words together unless one of them happened to be "EXTREME". Yamamoto was sitting on their couch, arms spread over the head rest; he smiled at Kyoko and the rest the moment they came in, but the look in his eyes was grim. He was wearing a suit that matched Ryohei's blow for blow save for the fact that the shirt he wore underneath was sky blue. Ryohei noticed them a bit afterward, and ended the phone call abruptly. Kyoko could not remember the last time she had seen him angry.

"Yamamoto's going to take you home, Kyoko-chan."

"What about you?"

"I need to make sure that Hibari's got back-up."

"Where is Tsuna?"

A pause, a telegraphic look. It was strange to see both Yamamoto and Ryohei so quiet and perfectly serious. Before any of them could speak, however, they heard a crash in front of the house. They turned around in time to see Chrome dragging a bloodied and broken Gokudera in through the door, trailed by the two strange-looking boys that Kyoko had often seen in Chrome's company. Yamamoto sheathed the sword that Kyoko had not even seen on his person just seconds earlier, and might have stepped forward to help Chrome out if Kyoko had not gotten there before him. Ryohei watched them for a moment before wordlessly pulling a pair of gloves out of his coat pocket and leaving the house.

Every cell in Kyoko's body was screaming at her to turn and tell her brother to come back. Kyoko she looked towards Yamamoto instead.

"What do I do now?"

Tsuna came around a little past two in the morning, while Yamamoto was still in the kitchen pulling bullets out of Gokudera's back and Kyoko was in the living room with Hana and Haru seated on either side of her, watching the clock. Kyoko took one look at her boyfriend, and instantly remembered a moment back to the scariest period in her life, when some large man in a black suit had apparently been out to kill her and Tsuna had appeared with bloodied gauntlets on his fists, an odd flame on his forehead and a dangerously calm look in his eyes. He spotted her, however, and the gauntlets turned to mittens, the flame sputtered out and the serenity vanished.

"K-Kyoko-chan, I'm so sorry about this. I really w-wanted to tell you at a better time, maybe we were sure that… that…"

_I never wanted this to happen_, he was saying to her with his eyes. Kyoko swallowed her fears and walked over, wrapping him up in her arms.

"Rest. Tell me all about it after you've slept."

Later in the afternoon, once she was sure that their "business" had been taken care of, Kyoko had Tsuna stretched out on the porch with his head on her lap, waving off his flailing and his protests. Then, as she busied herself with cleaning his ears, Tsuna proceeded to tell her all about his "other family" and some not-so-distant relatives tucked away in a certain, not-so-quiet corner of Italy.

* * *

_Present day._

"…And that's all for today. Now be good kids while I'm gone!"

Kyoko Sasagawa's heart warmed just a little at the collective groan that went up all across the room. In spite of the fact that they were the rowdiest section in their batch, this last class was her favorite. It always made her feel good when they let her know that they liked her just as well as she liked them. She bid her farewell to the class, and shut the door to the sound of their sing-song response. Her phone rang just as she entered the faculty office.

"Hello...? Oh, Haru-chan!" Kyoko immediately rushed to her desk and dumped all of the things that she was carrying. Some of her colleagues in the office paused to watch her, amused by her flailing; they were used to seeing Miss Sasagawa all prim and proper. "You're in town already?"

"**Yep~! Yamamoto-kun is with me. We're here to pick you up, so come down in five minutes!"**

"EEEEEEH?!"

_Click_. Kyoko pulled her phone away from her ear, staring at it with surprise. Tsuna had called her the other week about travel arrangements, but she had exactly been expecting someone from the Vongola to turn up this quickly… the young woman, however, quickly shrugged it off and finished packing her bag. It was a good thing that the last few years had taught her to be prepared for any event, whether it happened to as complex as an alien invasion or as simple as dropping everything and flying off to Italy the very next day.

Haru was the human cannonball who launched herself straight into Kyoko's arms the moment the latter had stepped out of Namimori Academy, but Kyoko did not mind one bit – the two women spent a good long time standing by the gates, chattering away with the same vigor and cheer that they had possessed as girls back in middle school. Haru, however, eventually remembered what she had originally come to the school for, and promptly dragged Kyoko over to the parking lot. When they found her car but could not see any sign of Yamamoto, the pair knew exactly where to go next.

***

Namimori Academy's baseball field was a lot bigger than he remembered it being – the school appeared to have redirected more of its funds towards its sports teams, and there was this startling feeling of newness all over the place. Yamamoto wandered about, absorbing his surroundings, almost oblivious to the way some of the students in the area were whispering and pointing in his direction. He was focused on an old memory in his head, a fuzzy image of the field where he idled many of his younger years away pitching, batting, running, catching… he imagined himself reaching out and taking that image, pinching its edges between thumb and ring finger, holding it up to the light as though it were film. He imagined superimposing it upon what he was seeing before him at present, just to see how far both he and the field had come along.

_The only thing that hasn't changed at all is the smell._ The swordsman paused right at the edge of an artificial hill sloping down towards the field and breathed in freshly cut grass, youngblood hopes and fond memories. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels, tilted his head up towards the clouds racing above his head and the light afternoon breeze sweeping through the area. He was probably grinning like a complete idiot, but he had been called that many times in the past by many different people. It wouldn't be fair for him to say that the baseball field was the only location in the school grounds that harbored good memories for Yamamoto, but the man knew that it was most certainly the one place that he did not have mixed feelings about. His sport was both his passion and his sanctuary, his public face to the world and the thing he always retreated to the moment the bloody glitz and glory of his other profession threatened to overwhelm him.

Some kids wearing Namimori's jersey were moving out unto the field for a quick practice round when Yamamoto's phone rang, drawing him out of his reverie. The swordsman frowned when he saw that it wasn't a number he recognized, and opted to listen to who was on the other end first before giving any sort of greeting.

"**Why so cautious, Yankee? Irie was the one who handled encrypting this line. I'm the only guy who can break in like this, y'know."**

Yamamoto chuckled. He'd recognize that American drawl anywhere.

"Spanner! I haven't heard from you in a while."

"**And you haven't been in the loop for a while, so we're even." **The sound of crunching followed on the other end of the line, loud and crisp in Yamamoto's ear – Spanner was probably working his way through another lollipop. The man continued speaking in that ambling monotone that he was known best for, beyond the oral fixation for hard candy. **"Twirls told me to ring in once my Number One Customer settled on where we could meet up, so I've rung in. Think you can make it to the Philippines by… I dunno, tomorrow morning?"**

"So Kyouya's over there, huh…"

"**Yep. The random Russian that he was spanking mentioned this rogue shipment of boxes the other day and ZIP! Here we are. Well," **Spanner added after a thoughtful pause, **"I just tagged along for the mangoes."** Another crunch. **"I'll send the details over to you in a jiffy. Ja bai bai~"**

"Was that Spanner?" asked Haru just as Yamamoto slipped his phone back into his pocket; she and Kyoko were making their way across the field, coming in from the general direction of the school proper. Yamamoto nodded.

"Kyouya's in the Philippines. Spanner asked whether we could make it there by tomorrow morning." Yamamoto grinned at Haru. "He still calls you Twirls."

Haru puffed her cheeks in annoyance. "I already told him that I hated that nickname… I don't even wear my hair like that anymore! ANYWAY," she huffed after a moment, "We should get a move on… Hibari-san's probably going to move on within the next twenty-four hours. It's going to be annoying if we end up missing him. Spanner-san and his stupid nicknames," the young woman muttered as she stepped off to the side. Kyoko approached Yamamoto with a beautiful smile.

"Hello again."

"Hi!"

"Tsu-kun and I watched your latest game on television together… well, sorta. I watched it on TV and he called me as soon as Irie-kun to found a live feed for him online." Kyoko chuckled and squeezed his hands. "You were great out there."

"Ahaha, well. It was a fun game… the Giants played really well too."

He still found it weird, looking down at Kyoko, noting how she had only grown more radiant with the years after middle school, re-remembering exactly what it was about people like her that made people like him feel big and clumsy. She held his callused hands between her own; they were smoother and whiter than his, used to tamer activities than the sort that he occupied himself with.

"Plane's ready~"

Haru rejoined them, waving her phone about like a trophy. "Kyoko-chan, I had one of my boys pick Hana-chan up… she should be waiting for us at your place by now. Let's go?"

"All right!"

They headed back to the parking lot together, with Haru happily tugging Kyoko along and Yamamoto following just a few steps behind with hands in his pockets, watching them talk with some fondness. In the next few months, Kyoko was going to become his best friend's wife and step in, all lightness and grace, to the underworld. Yamamoto might have been worried, if it had been anybody else. Kyoko, however, had shown him how strong she really was (and how much stronger she could get, in a way) many times in the past. Something told him that all would be well.

"I'M DRIVING, OKAY, YAMA-KUN?"

"_Hai, hai_."

_And if it ever looks like things WON'T be fine, _Yamamoto found himself thinking as he closed the passenger door behind Kyoko and graciously took the back seat of the car, _Tsuna has us._


	5. Ch4, Everybody's stalking

**Chapter Four. Everybody's stalking.**

* * *

They were on a Vongola-owned private jet and flying out of Namimori by three in the morning the next day. While most of the people in their hometown were fast asleep, Yamamoto, Haru, Kyoko and Hana were comfortably ensconced in seats that could give the best first class air services a run for their money, exchanging stories over a light continental breakfast. They were three hours from their destination when Yamamoto was finally left to his own devices – his companions had decided to sleep for the rest of the way, in order to gather up energy for the white sands and sun-warmed waters of the Philippines. Even with the quick stopover at Manila, they were going to arrive at their destination well before lunch time – Haru, ever enthusiastic, claimed that it was only proper of them to take the opportunity to jump right into the water the moment they arrived. They were only going to stay in the Philippines for so long as Hibari was not with them, after all.

…_And he's always been the kind of guy who'll up and leave without a word, then come back around when you've already given up on waiting for him._

The thought brought a rueful smile to his face and memories of looking down on his rumpled bed sometime past the point where average high school boys should have been fast asleep. Yamamoto's fingers lingered just on top of that baseball bat case, the one that contained not the lucky bat he reportedly kept close to his person at all times, but the Shigure Kintoki, a gift from his father. It was a weapon that he had used to carve the Vongola name upon flesh and bone and musculature, cutting and cutting until the blade had soaked up enough blood to keep him at the basin for hours on end just to wash it clean. He still wasn't sure whether he had gotten used to the business over the years, or whether he had just gotten faster at cleaning up after himself.

"I hope you're not sleeping yet because you're thinking up of a plan, and not because you can't take naps on planes."

Yamamoto only laughed in response, turning to face a bleary-eyed Haru. "You caught me red-handed there, Haru-chan," he said, looking sheepish. "Don't worry, though. I'll figure something out."

"Good." Haru shifted about, adjusting the pillow just under her neck. "You must be wondering when Spanner and Hibari-san started hanging out so much."

"I can find out in my own time." The Rain Guardian grinned. "You should go back to sleep. We've's still another flight and a car ride after this."

"Oh… right."

Yamamoto watched the young woman as she drifted off. He couldn't blame Haru for staying on his case about having some sort of plan. Hibari may have "officially" accepted the fact that he was a part of the Vongola Family, but that did not stop him from denying them on a whim and doing only exactly what he wanted to do – the only person who could get him to heel was Tsuna himself, and the last thing Yamamoto wanted to do was stress his best friend out. Of course, that did not mean that Hibari could not be trusted. He had, with his words and his weapons and his very strange sense of honor, duty and responsibility, pulled through for them time and time again.

"_Grow some fangs, Yamamoto Takeshi, or you will be dead before you can fix things."_

Yamamoto set the case aside, trading it for the blanket folded up in front of him. Sleep suddenly seemed like a good idea. Given the fact that he was sure to be the one put in charge of bringing the Cloud Guardian around when the time came, the Rain Guardian figured that he was going to need as much rest as he could get.

* * *

_A few hours later. Krystal Lodge, Coron._

Years back, back when he was still holed up in his MIT laboratories with his half-built servers and exoskeletons, Spanner would not have ever thought that he could find himself oceans away from the USA at any given moment. While he had believed that home could, in theory, be any place that was capable of effectively housing his work and providing for all of his needs, no other place had seemed like a more capable place to do that beyond his home state. Three things, however, had dragged Spanner out of his shell: befriending Shouichi Irie, hearing stories about the fantastically self-igniting Tsunayoshi Sawada, and Kyouya Hibari – then future Cloud Guardian of the Vongola – fighting his way through several S.W.A.T. teams and a handful of CIA agents just to fetch him from his lab.

He and Shouichi had met during an international convention on robotics – they became instant friends not because they got along right off the bat, but because they had argued extensively on the principles, ethics and what they believed to be the true function of robotics as a whole just minutes after the obligatory round of self-introductions at the dinner table on gala night. Shouichi had never met a mind so sharp outside of his own, and Spanner had never met someone so cute (with Spanner's definition of "cute" following along the lines of Pokemon creatures, and hence, completely non-sexual in nature) but critical at the same time… it had all the right elements for a lasting friendship in their language, and from then on, they had stayed in touch. What really intrigued Spanner about Shouichi, however, was how evasive the younger man was about whatever he was doing in Japan. The younger man was putting up a front, and the small inconsistencies and vagueness in his e-mails when it came to the topic of work made Spanner wonder. Nonetheless, he didn't push, and Shouichi didn't elaborate. If it did not have a direct bearing on the things they did or whatever they wanted to do, then perhaps it really didn't matter.

…Of course, when Shouichi started oh-so-casually mentioning Tsunayoshi Sawada, that changed things. At the time, Sawada had already built up quite the reputation as that strange young man from Namimori who was the king of the hill not only among the Italian mobsters, but among all of the major organized crime groups across the globe. It was fairly ridiculous – his mafia family's name, for one, meant something like "clams" in English, and Tsunayoshi was very much Japanese, much more than he was Italian (Spanner still didn't know how that had worked out, in terms of why Tsunayoshi was the head of his family over all the other likely candidates). The young man seemed like a collection of idiosyncrasies and Spanner was quite ready to dismiss him as an interesting subject to talk about over breakfast, but not somebody he should bother himself with too much. A live feed of Tsunayoshi Sawada in action, however, made him do a complete 360. Shouichi had sent it in to Spanner on a whim, with a cryptic one-line message attached to the file: _something that might give your toys a run for their money_. Spanner spent all of the following evening tearing through the Internet, attempting to find more videos. Anybody who could light himself on fire and _glow_ like something radioactive without actually _dying _merited some attention.

Spanner's research expanded from that point on, developing both in the field of robotics and in other fields, ones that more traditional scientists would have scoffed at and dismissed as pseudo-scientific voodoo. By day, he lectured at the university, sticking to his role as the youngest and brightest robotics expert in the country – at night he was constantly on the webcam with Shouichi, talking boxes and flame attributes and the energy of the soul. As his knowledge in _those_ areas increased, however, so did the alarm over his brilliance and talent, and it wasn't long before different sectors of the government were sending him invitations to work for the President (or be branded a terrorist and thrown into prison; they never actually added that last part, but Spanner knew it was there) and the gangs were taking him out to dinner, to veil threats into their own wheedling over pulling him to their side of the fence. Spanner outright refused them all – tying him down to either side meant curtailing his freedom, in spite of all their promises and assurances. If he couldn't be free to do his work as he pleased and at his leisure, then there wasn't any point to it.

His situation, predictably, grew worse as time went on, and before Spanner knew it, he was under house arrest in his own laboratories with Agent Smith-lookalikes at his door and helicopters flying all over the place. After a day of moping, the blond pragmatically decided that it was pointless to get worked up over it, and proceeded to figure out what he would need to program or rig up in order to escape. He had just completed King Mosca Version 2.55 when his phone rang for the first time in months. He picked up, expecting it to be Shouichi (he was the only guy who could break through the codes that Spanner put up on the line), but was greeted by a very different voice instead.

"Yo."

"**S-Spanner-san? Is that you?"**

"…Who are you?"

"**Ah, sorry! I'm Tsunayoshi Sawada. Um. J… just call me Tsuna for short."**

"Did Shouichi set this up for you?"

"**Yes. Listen, um, I really don't have much time, so I just wanted you to know that my family plans on breaking you out of there. Since. Um. You might need help."**

"Sorry, Vongola, but I think I've got it covered."

"**E-eh?"**

"I don't build robots for nothing, you know. Besides, I don't want to owe you any favors."

"**And you won't!"**

Spanner had paused at that point, intrigued by the tone of Tsuna's voice. Back then, he had thought that it was an effect of the phone line. He realized, later on, that the feeling behind those words had, indeed, been very real.

"**A-ah, anyway, I've already sent two of my friends to help you out, just in case you need it. Their names are Hayato Gokudera and Takeshi Yamamoto, and—"**

Tsuna had cut off just as a loud explosion rocked the building, sending Spanner diving under the sanctuary offered by his worktable. Panicked voices rose up from just outside of his lab, and Spanner thought he could hear the smattering of gunfire in the distance.

"**U-um. I guess that's Hayato. Please prepare yourself to leave as soon as they arrived, Spanner-san."**

"Hmm." Spanner crawled out from under his desk at that point, sweeping over the room at the very last minute. He had just finished setting everything up when the door opened, revealing two red-faced and very harassed-looking black suits.

"Mr. Spanner, you are to come with us immediately – WAIT. WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT ROBOT AND WHO ARE YOU TALKING WITH ON THE PHONE?!" He was probably going to say more and maybe pull out his gun, but a fluffy yellow bird that Spanner was going become increasingly familiar with in the future fluttered into the room at that very moment, twittering a tune that sounded oddly like a school anthem.

"What the—?"

One heartbeat, and both guards were on the ground, severely beaten by a wild-haired, tonfa-wielding stranger in a shirt already stained with the blood and dirt of a hell lot of fighting. The young man flipped his tonfa as he straightened up, fixing his gaze on Spanner – the eerie purple flames from his weapons reflected in his eyes. Spanner blinked, then lifted the phone back to his ear.

"Hey, Tsuna. I think I've just met one of your friends."

"**Oh, great! Um, please tell them that—"**

"There's only one of them."

"…**Eh?"**

"I am not one of Sawada's friends." Hibari Kyouya – all of eighteen years old and raring for a fight – leveled Spanner with a look as his avian companion landed on his shoulder, twittering happily over the gunfire and the screams. "I have come here to make sure you do not fess up, Spanner. Two options: take that herbivore's deal, or death."

"Hou…"

"**H-H-H-H-HIBARI-SAN!"**

"Hmm… I kind of don't want to die yet."

"**HIBARI-SAN, PLEASE DON'T KILL HIM!"**

"Hey, Tsuna, he really can't hear you~"

"I do not care what you want or do not want, _gaijin_," Hibari cut in with a yawn, bringing Spanner's attentions back to the situation at hand. "You have one minute."

Spanner blinked. A turn of the joystick in his hands, and King Gola Mosca Version 2.55's fist was flying towards Hibari's face. Nobody should have been able to dodge that punch – Spanner had made all the proper calculations, and run all the proper simulations.

That night, Hibari had not even tried to dodge the hit. The boy had simply lifted up his tonfa and took up a more defensive position as the purple flames from his weapons roared to life, wreathing him in a halo of destructive heat. The robot's fist crumbled upon contact, right before Spanner's very eyes.

"Thirty seconds now," said Hibari, after the smoke had cleared. He yawned again. Spanner blinked, surveyed the damage done to what had formerly been his masterpiece of the moment, and proceeded to say the only thing that came to mind.

"…So. If I hang out with you guys, will I get to see that more often?"

***

Seven years and many misadventures later, Spanner found himself reclining in a hammock rigged up right outside of a cabin out on stilts over the sea, listening to sound of seabirds calling to each other and the water lapping up against the pillars or the sides of the native boats in the area, sipping cold juice straight from a coconut and wondering if room service was going to kill him for asking for another round of mangoes. He had not taken the Vongola's deal that night, not really: Gokudera and Yamamoto had turned up just before his minute decided to run out o him, trailed by a ridiculous number of S.W.A.T. teams. The four of them had proceeded to bust out the university and fight their way out all the way to the airport, where none other than Shouichi Irie himself was waiting for them. It was only after they were safely up in the air and halfway to Italy that Spanner was able to sit down and ask what had just happened and what Hibari had meant by him screwing up. Talk of time travel followed, along with the most ridiculous but fascinating story that Spanner had ever heard in his life.

He did not join any mafia family or group in the future – the Vongola Family and their allies took pains to fulfill his request to remain safe but ultimately independent, and in return, Spanner took any job that they offered him. Surprisingly, however, Tsunayoshi Sawada and his intriguing X-Burner techniques did not end up becoming his biggest customer – nor was it Dino Cavallone, Naito Longchamp, Aria Giglionero or any other of Sawada's allies. It ended up becoming the man that Hibari Kyouya grew up into, the dark-haired, mercurial fighter whom Spanner was currently in the Philippines with and had followed to other countries many times before. They often traveled together, in the same spirit of developing and digging up more technology that had, in another time almost parallel to their own, nearly dominated the crime scene and could have moved on to completely destroying the world.

"SPANNER-SAN, WE'RE HERE – ew! Why are you wearing something that horrendous?!"

Spanner merely continued sipping up the remnants of his drink, oblivious to the look of disgust that Haru was giving his shirt (Hawaiian print; a tacky gift from one of his tacky contacts on the island). The blond man eventually set the coconut aside, and gave the whole party a jaunty wave as they moved towards him, walking across uneven wooden planks and sunlit waters.

"Oh~hisasheeburee de~suu, mee~na-san."

"Your Japanese is still horrible," Yamamoto returned in easy English, with a little laugh and an amused grin – the girls in his company had turned him into their baggage boy, but he didn't seem to mind at all.

"I like mispronouncing stuff… it's more fun that way. Kusakabe's out back cooking lunch with the locals for us," Spanner drawled, jerking his thumb towards the cabin. "You can drop your stuff off and dive right in, ladies."

The group spent some time getting re-acquainted with each other before Haru loudly proclaimed that the waters were calling to her. The women moved off to their own cabin, and Yamamoto personally accompanied them in order to carry their things and make sure they were properly settled. By the time he came back, Spanner was on his second serving of coconut juice. He was also steadily making his way through a generous serving of Philippine mangoes, which he seemed to enjoy very much.

"Where's Kyouya?"

"Alive and wandering around the Puerto Princesa area. That's about all I know."

"…Huh?"

"Here, have some of this stuff first… it's really good." Spanner shoved the plate full of sliced mangoes in Yamamoto's direction, and wouldn't say anything more until the Rain Guardian picked one of them up and got himself a spoon. The man then twisted about, rummaging through a decrepit-looking backpack on the floor just beside his hammock. He popped back up, whipping out something that looked vaguely like an old PDA. The screen, however, was completely grayed out save for a faintly blinking red dot near one of the corners. "There he is," he drawled, showing it to Yamamoto. "Signal's really bad down here, so I can't get a fix on his location. He's alive, though, see? Alive." He tapped the dot for emphasis. "Thing's programmed to flash a different color if his heart stops, or if he's injured. It's nice and red, though, so we don't have to worry at all."

Yamamoto did not bother asking Spanner why he or Kusakabe were not with Hibari – the Cloud Guardian had probably dumped them in Coron and gone off, perhaps with a hissed instruction for them to stay put and not follow him around. That probably meant that the operation involved a hell lot of fighting and death-defying stunts on the Cloud Guardian's part. It was only right, then, that another Guardian – someone closer to Hibari's skill level – be placed in charge of dragging him away after it was finished and bringing him over before he could go and find another fight to join. It was supposed to be the S.O.P. with regard to summoning Hibari over whenever he was needed in Italy and could _not_ be found in Namimori, or in Tokyo.

_Although in practice, I have always been the Guardian of choice when it came to dealing with Kyouya._

The sound of laughter caught Yamamoto and Spanner's attention, drawing them away from their discussion – as one, the two men looked up to see the girls coming back around, dressed for the beach. "Is lunch ready yet?" Haru asked as they came around; she was tugging Kyoko along, with Hana trailing behind them.

"I don't think so~ you can go and check with Kusakabe, if you want."

"Nah! That just means that we're taking a dip now!"

"Will you be joining us, Yamamoto-kun?" Kyoko asked, smiling, putting a hand on Yamamoto's arm. The man shook his head.

"Sorry, but I think I better rest up. It looks like I'm going to be busy tonight." He only patted her hand at her questioning look, and stood up. "I'm going to go in and finish my nap. You girls have fun, all right?"

"So you have a plan?" Haru asked curiously. Yamamoto grinned.

"I've got my sword and enough pocket money to buy him some decent cigarettes. We'll see how it goes from there."

"I can always swim with you guys," Spanner said as Yamamoto walked off. "It's about time I test Mosca's underwater capabilities—"

"…No."

Yamamoto pulled the door to the cabin shut with a laugh. The man shifted his duffel bag over to his other shoulder, giving himself a moment to adjust to the lighting; he threw off his coat a moment later, moving to occupy the one corner of the house that wasn't cluttered with distinctly Spanner-centric paraphernalia. A part of him was railing, protesting at the fact that he had done little else but talk with people or sleep throughout the whole trip. Yamamoto, however, knew that in a matter of a few hours, that was going to change, drastically, and it was almost certainly going to go downhill from there.


	6. Ch5, Blood & bone & a little night music

**Chapter Five. Blood and bone and a little bit of night music.**

* * *

_Seven years ago. Somewhere in Tokyo._

The family records will later insist that the first job he ever did as the Rain Guardian of the Vongola was a success, but the reality could not have been further from what the reports said. Sure, all of the assigned targets had been dutifully punished (killed in three sword strokes or less) and all that should have rightfully belonged to the family was rightfully _returned_ to the family (because guys don't really have a say in the matter once they're dead), but it had not been pleasant and it was far from clean. His ring was meant to reflect the sort of work that he was supposed to do – clean-up jobs, smooth-tongued negotiations, turning the tables and tweaking all the right conditions to keep things in the underworld exactly the way the Vongola Family wanted them to be. Now he was beginning to wonder if it was all some sort of cosmic joke. There was nothing clean about clean-up jobs, and there was nothing smooth about negotiations with rival families, and really, until that moment he had not known that for some particularly persistent buggers, _telling _them to surrender and rattling one's sword at them a little for emphasis just wasn't going to cut it. _Stabbing_ and _hacking away_, however, had proven to be a _lot_ more effective, if not a whole lot grosser.

Yamamoto Takeshi almost wished that he hadn't thought about that last part: he had almost recovered from his latest bout of retching. Almost. The young man felt his guts clench up, sending bile surging right back up his throat and into his mouth; he bent over just in time to deposit more of the insides of his stomach into the gutter at his feet. Gokudera probably wasn't going to like it if he ruined yet another pair of shoes. Those things were expensive.

"Are you done yet?"

"God… I sure hope I am."

Yamamoto reeled back up after he had finished puking for the umpteenth time that hour; he pressed his forehead against the cool bricks, fighting to ignore the sour taste lingering in his mouth. The dark-haired young man could feel his companion's eyes drilling holes right through that spot just in between his shoulder blades, but at that point, he was too busy marveling at his latest discovery: that it was entirely possible for a guy to throw up more than what he had actually eaten in a day. Yamamoto held still, taking deep and regular breaths, quietly willing himself to stop shaking. He suddenly wondered why his father and Reborn had never bothered to warn him about how completely brutal it was to use a sword against people. Carving up dead fish was one thing. Carving up living people _until _they were dead beyond all reasonable doubt was quite another.

"If you do not hurry up, I will bite you to—"

"Later, later," Yamamoto cut in without turning around, with a dismissive wave towards his companion. "I think I make for a pretty boring target right now… I mean, you like it when people fight back, right? Besides," he added with a weak chuckle. "I might end up throwing up on you at this rate."

A pause.

"…You are disgusting."

"Ahahaha. Sorry?"

Hibari Kyouya did not answer him; a moment later, Yamamoto could hear the sound of the ex-prefect walking away from him, soft but distinct against the sporadic passing of cars on the street in front of the alleyway they were in. The young man wasn't particularly surprised by that – he might, in fact, have been more alarmed if Hibari had bothered to stick around and watch him. Hence, as he was certain that Hibari had probably abandoned him, Yamamoto took his time, moving only when he was sure that he wasn't going to be struck by the urge to find the next available gutter to puke some more in. He smoothed out his suit, ran a steadying hand through his hair, stuffed his hands into his pockets and left the alleyway, wondering if the trains were still running, practicing exactly how he was going to smile at Tsuna and tell his boss and best friend that he was really fine—

"Where do you think you are going?"

Yamamoto blinked. There was Hibari seated on the curve, arms balanced on his knees, cigarette in one hand and cellular phone in another. The Cloud Guardian was texting someone, face awash from the eerie glow of his phone's screen, fingers tapping out words at a speed that was sure to make Yamamoto dizzy if he bothered watching them for too long. Hibird was the bright yellow ball of fluff and feathers nestled just within the crook of Hibari's shoulder, wings drawn up tight against his body, eyes peacefully shut.

"You look retarded, standing around like that."

"Sorry, sorry~"

The Rain Guardian plopped down beside Hibari and grinned, oblivious to his companion's disapproving glare. In the recent years, Yamamoto had re-learned what he had already known years back, when he used to be the good-natured baseball fanatic and Hibari the young delinquent that he regularly dragged home and out of the rain – he had discovered that the ticket to getting close to Hibari Kyouya was to force him to consider your existence, to carelessly invade the ridiculously wide circle of personal space he drew around himself, to laugh off all the insults and the punches he was bound to throw in your direction, to just stand and offer up your neck the moment he tried to bite you. It was only after the two of you have moved past the point where you could have gracefully given up and he's too tired to keep fighting you off that he might finally realize that you mean him no harm.

"Hey, I didn't know you smoked. I thought Gokudera was the only Guardian who did that."

"Quiet."

"How does that stuff taste, anyway? Is it all ashy? And, does it really warm you up? Reborn mentioned that to me before, when I asked him… he said it's nice to smoke during cold weather, kind of like how it's good to drink coffee when it's cold and stuff."

"…Quiet."

"I mean, I'm really curious about it, but I'm still an athlete, y'know? I'm not supposed to do any of that stuff since it's bad for my health and bad for publicity. Lots of gangsters seem to love smoking though, huh? I wonder if they're doing it because they think it's cool or something. If that's the case, then somebody should really make them stop. But that's kind of hard, huh?"

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

"Oh, hey! HERE'S an idea! Maybe I can talk to Tsuna about some sort of smoking ban in the family! Ahaha, Gokudera's probably going to be really pissed about it, but it's good for his health in the long run. He's kind of a walking cancer story, you know? Besides, he always does exactly what Tsuna tells him to do, so maybe—"

"You nearly botched the mission up tonight because you were weak."

Yamamoto fell silent. Hibari shut his phone with a snap and turned around to stare at his companion, eyeing the other Guardian with that special sort of disdain that he only seemed to reserve for Gokudera, Lambo, crowds and other things that he absolutely detested.

"You hesitated," Hibari went on to say, in a cool voice that denied the smoldering disapproval in his eyes. "You did not want to kill them, so you tried to find some way around it. They took advantage of you, so you were forced to fight harder and I was forced to step in and help you finish them off. _That_ is why it got messy. If you had not stopped, then they would not have had the time to resist."

"…But they still would have died."

He spoke without thinking, but he did not regret it. Hibari blinked.

"I thought you herbivores wanted to change the future."

"We do, but… people don't have to die this way."

Yamamoto suddenly felt like he was back to being six-years-old and openly defying his father for the first time by choosing a sport over running the family business, stubbornly repeating himself, fumbling over his own words. Hibari leveled him with another look, and then lifted his cigarette up. A long drag, a cloud of smoke.

"Grow some fangs, Yamamoto Takeshi, or you will be dead before we can fix things."

* * *

_Present day. The docks, Puerto Princesa City._

Yamamoto could, the moment he stepped into the area, guess what must have happened at a glance: he was, after all, very familiar with Hibari Kyouya's S.O.P., and everything about the setup fell right within the margins he had developed for his own reference over his years of working closely with the Cloud Guardian. The area, for one, had been completely cleared of its security detail; there were no guards (or bodies _of_ guards) in sight, and the security cameras looked like they had been smashed through with a morning star, a flail, or some other weapon with a hell lot of spikes. Electronic devices of any sort instantaneously shut down, and Yamamoto had a feeling that even his own phone – something that Irie had modified, making it capable of blocking off that sort of interference – would not be able to receive or make calls to anybody for so long as he remained within the area. The immediate surroundings also gave no indication of there being anything amiss: the grounds were clean, and there was even an old janitor hoisting up the trash bags piled up against the wall of one of the warehouses. Yamamoto waited until the man was gone before he reached into his jacket, pulling out a small, scarred box inscribed with images of summer rain upon its surface from his inner pocket.

"I didn't think I'd be using you again this soon," the swordsman murmured as the ring on his left hand went alight with a distinct blue flame. He pressed the insignia upon the groove on the box, and the swallow within burst out in a flash of light. The box animal shot up, circled around once before doubling back, fluttering close to Yamamoto. He smiled at the creature and moved towards the warehouse.

"Make it rain, little guy. Kyouya's going to need somebody to sweep up after him in a bit."

Yamamoto did not even turn to watch as his box creature went off in a quick snap of wings. He ducked within the shade of the sun shelter fixed over the entrance to the warehouse just as the downpour started up, crashing over the area with an abruptness not uncommon to a tropical country like the Philippines. No one would think anything of it, and no one would be able to hear when things started getting noisy.

One would think that after swinging a bat on the mound for so long, one would find the weight of a sword frightening and cumbersome. When Yamamoto unsheathed the Shigure Kintoki, however, he felt as though the last time he had wielded the thing had been just yesterday, as if hadn't kept the sword locked up in its case and opted to use other weapons whenever he was required to do business for the family during his "extended vacation". He was not bothered. Oddly enough, the swordsman felt like he had, in one sense, simply slipped out of one scene and right back into another, in a fashion similar to the smooth, thoughtless familiarity of a man moving from room to room in his own home.

Sometime during their university years, he and Ryohei had gone to a bar after a particularly difficult negotiation with the Varia and, after knocking back a few drinks, proceeded to talk about how they managed to keep sane even with all the fighting and how they, as sportsmen, dealt with the fact that they were walking around with blood on their hands. Ryohei dealt with it by continuing to play by the rules of the boxing ring, even with the full knowledge that his opponents usually did not care about abstract concepts like honor and the dignity of human life. Yamamoto, on the other hand, decided to approach things the way surgeons approached the patients that they had to slice open and legally mutilate with every operation: with a healthy dose of humor and just the right amount of ignorance towards particular details. It probably wasn't the most proper way of dealing with it (and Ryohei had told him as much, and rather explosively at that), but it smoothed things over, and being the Rain Guardian was all about being smooth. Hence, when the first guy came out and he sliced him in half at the drop of a dime, Yamamoto did not think about the horrific amount of blood that gushed out just seconds after the stroke, or about how the man's insides just sort of flopped all over the floor right in front of him, pink and red and putrid. In fact, at the precise moment where the edge of the Shigure Kintoki met flesh, Yamamoto was riding on the instinctual calculations of a batter gearing up for a homerun, too busy to really notice that the object he had just taken a swing at was a person, not a baseball. The swordsman lingered in the corridor a moment later, blinked at the body, lifted his sword up to the light, peered at it, and scratched the back of his neck.

"Hmm… was that fast enough? I remember swinging faster before…"

Yamamoto stepped over the man he had just gutted, entering the warehouse proper; his favorite song came to mind just as he turned a corner and ran into more men in suits. He whistled along to the tune in his head as he opted to charge forward rather than take cover, stepping right past their defenses, slicing up their guns (and sometimes, the trigger fingers or whole hands holding the weapons in question) before they could fire. The rain he had brought on was coming down stronger, pelting a million little water bullets down upon the metal rooftop of the warehouse, smothering screams beneath collective white noise. Yamamoto, however, did not notice the rain. He continued whistling and walking along, absentmindedly ripping through whomever he happened to come across, eyes seeing past the pile of bodies he was building, ears tuned for something beyond the rain and the song in his head. He was listening for the sound of another Guardian – another necromancer – at work, the distinct _thwack-thwack-thwack_ of tonfa colored by the not-so-occasional snap of a human body driven and twisted well past the point of breaking. He heard it just when he was halfway through the maze of cargo boxes, and was thus prepared for the flash of fangs that lashed out at him the moment he stepped out into the clearing where he knew his fellow Guardian would be.

Where most of the other Guardians of the Vongola had changed in ways that made them almost totally different from their younger selves, Hibari Kyouya had only become more of what he already was: sharp, vicious, uncompromising, driven, fiercely independent. He had bled down to the physical essentials, grown in strength at a fast and frightening speed over the years, first becoming a reflection of the man that Yamamoto, Gokudera and Tsuna had met in an alternate future and then moving on to completely surpass that image, building another that made his old future self seem like a distant memory. He did not deny his ties with the Vongola Family, at least not in the way that he used to. Of course, he expected more than the regular amount of leeway given to Guardians that moved more or less independently from the family unless they were called upon for business. This meant that he did not take to interruptions very well, and always moved to dispose of it immediately and in the most possibly lethal way. While the others were often annoyed at this (or, in Rokudo Mukuro's case, amused), Yamamoto knew that this was a merely a knee-jerk reaction of a man who despised crowds, and therefore took no offense at the fact that Hibari had just rushed at him, backing him up against the nearest wall with the sheer force of his strike.

"Ahaha… hi."

Hibari stared. A full minute passed before the Cloud Guardian released his grip with a derisive snort, all thwarted killing intent and white-hot irritation. Yamamoto chuckled as he straightened up, fixing his collar.

"Um. That kind of hurt, if it helps."

"Take that man to your left and follow me."

"Man…? Oh!" Yamamoto bent down, checking the pulse of the guy in question; he was surprised to discover that the man was still alive. Nonetheless, Yamamoto did what he was told.

***

By the time they were done, the little room at the back of the warehouse was the only clean place left in the whole building. Yamamoto only called his box creature back after they had finished disposing of the bodies – it wasn't the most thrilling thing on Earth, dragging corpses through the pouring rain, but they applied themselves to the activity with the single-minded determination of people who were experts in their field. Half of what made a gangster job good was if one managed to leave nothing behind: no signs, no evidence of foul play, and the eerie sort of cleanliness that left the right message for their rival families to pick up on in the near future.

The rules of classic interrogation dictated the need for a sturdy table, a set of good chairs, a pair of handcuffs, bad lighting and a heavy hand when dealing with your unfortunate prisoner. In the case that any of these factors were absent, a very large refrigerator could suffice.

Yamamoto shut the door of the fridge for the third time, counted off ten seconds in his head, then opened the door again. "Y'know, you're just making this hard for yourself, buddy," he said in English, to the man they had stuffed in with the beer and the leftover lunch food. "I mean, we're asking _pretty _simple questions here, and you know what they say about simple questions and simple answers."

"BUT I SWEAR I DON'T KNOW ANYTHI—"

Yamamoto shut the door again, sealing the rest of the sentence shut behind him. "Stubborn, isn't he?" he remarked in Japanese, turning towards the back door. Hibari took a drag from his cigarette; he was sitting just within the doorframe, fiddling with his cellular phone. He did not turn around, did not answer. Yamamoto chuckled, counted to fifteen and opened the refrigerator once more. Some things in life were bound to never change.

"W-wait, wait! I-I think I r-r-remember something now!"

"Oh?"

"Y-you gotta p-promise me that y-you'll let me off c-clean if I—" the man shrieked when Yamamoto made as if to close the door again. "OKAYYOUDON'THAVETOI'LLTALK."

Yamamoto beamed.

"That's more like it."

Some thirty minutes later, Yamamoto ambled over to the doorframe, leaned an arm over the entranceway and glanced down at his companion. Hibari spared him a single glance and, predictably, let out an annoyed snort in his direction.

"You are blocking my light."

"I haven't seen you in a while."

Hibari fixed his gaze on the warehouses in the distance, lifted the cigarette to his lips. Yamamoto rocked back on his heels, lightly fanning himself with his shirt. The rain had done little to lessen the oppressive heat that evening – he had thought, wrongfully, that spending all that time playing baseball in Southern Japan would have prepared him for dealing with all sorts of weather conditions. He wondered how Hibari could manage to look so crisp, clean and totally unruffled in a country as warm as the Philippines.

"The girls are waiting for us over in Coron. We should probably head back."

Five seconds, and Hibari turned into a series of sharp, connected movements: a languid blink, heel crushing a cigarette underfoot, standing, hands fingering a purple box inscribed with clouds, walking, moving away from Yamamoto. The Rain Guardian was unperturbed; with a small laugh and another rueful shake of his head, he moved to follow the other man.

Back in the room, a man locked in a refrigerator had not giving up on screaming and pounding at the door, wondering why he couldn't push it open, not knowing that his interrogators had wrapped heavy chains around the whole thing and topped it all off with a lock. There was no longer anyone around to hear him.


	7. Ch6, Used to your streets

**Chapter Six. Used to your streets.**

* * *

_Puerto Princesa City, Palawan Island, Philippines._

It was an early hour on a Friday night. Many hawkers still roamed the streets of Puerto Princesa or sat behind the rundown stalls close to shore or along all the major roads, bathed in the half-shadows of the evening or the harsh electric glow of fluorescent lamps. They an army of Bored and Tired faces peddling their wares, smacking randomly at swarms of mosquitoes, puffing their way through an assembly line of cheap cigarettes – they have learned, in their years of selling tourist traps to as many people as they could, that the best way to deal with their job was to keep their heads low and not ask questions.

"How much does this cost?"

The street vendor glanced down at the shirt thrust in front of him, then up at the inquirer's face, then down again, just right in the middle, focused, in particular, on the bloodstains liberally blotching up his potential customer's shirt. A foreigner, Oriental-looking, with surprisingly good Tagalog; his grasp of the language was both pleasant and just a little alarming.

The sharp-eyed stranger shook the t-shirt about in an attempt to catch the peddler's attention again. "How much?" he repeated, with just the right amount of edge to his tone. The kind that could be read as impatient rather than threatening.

"Two-hundred fifty _na lang po_," the vendor serenely returned. No need to hassle himself over some random foreigner with blood on his clothes. "Special price _na po_."

(He wasn't _actually_ lying. He usually tried to ding chinks for half a thousand bucks before subsequently lowering the price, because they weren't half as stingy as the Russians one usually got around the island. This stranger probably didn't mind spending a lot either, but his better instincts told him that maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to cheat this one. Not if he wanted to keep more than just his store intact.)

A pause, and the shirt was replaced by a wad of dirty-looking twenty-peso bills. By the time the vendor looked up, the stranger in that fancy (bloody) suit was long gone.

***

"That was unexpected," Yamamoto remarked as Hibari walked past him. "Aren't you worried that he'll call the cops or something?"

Hibari walked along without a word and Yamamoto simply followed him, hands in his pockets and not looking disturbed or annoyed in the least. They walked among the locals and under the street lights, weaving their way through the evening crowd.

"So I was thinking that you're probably not worried because you've got it all covered," Yamamoto said sometime afterward. "I mean, it's been nearly two hours. You'd think that people would talk after seeing strange Japs with blood on their clothes." He was leaning against the wall of one of the many outhouses close to the beach, waiting for Hibari to finish up. "So I figure that yeah, you've must've bribed some guys when you landed, or maybe you've got some friends here. The usual stuff."

Hibari stepped out, wearing the shirt he had just bought – it was a souvenir tee, with a halfway decent sketch of the island and the words "I PALAWAN" inscribed in big, bold letters over the drawing. Yamamoto grinned at him. Hibari didn't even look in his direction; the Cloud Guardian started off again immediately, with his ruined shirt on his arm and his coat hanging off his shoulders. Yamamoto found himself looking for the Namimori Academy Disciplinary Committee armband before he remembered that Hibari wasn't a prefect, he wasn't on the varsity and both of them weren't kids anymore.

"Oh, I nearly forgot," Yamamoto said, as they sat at the tricycle station. "Tsuna had me attend this negotiation with the leaders of the Southern Side last month." They had a bench to themselves and were seated on opposite ends of it, mostly because Yamamoto had settled in first and Hibari automatically sat as far away from him as possible. "The head was asking about you… he seems like a cool guy."

A tricycle eventually came around. Hibari murmured something in Tagalog to the driver, and the man sent him an alarmed look before nodding and revving his bike up. Hibari slipped into the passenger's cabin, and pointedly glared at Yamamoto. Yamamoto dutifully took his place at the back of the bike, right behind the driver. He knew when to take a hint.

"You know, this seems like a really interesting place," Yamamoto remarked later, as he stood around behind his companion, watching Hibari order some street food at the corner. "I wasn't able to see much of Coron, but what I _did_ see really impressed me. Ah!" the swordsman exclaimed, as though he had been struck with a sudden epiphany. "_Here's _an idea… maybe we should have a family trip down here sometime! I'll tell Tsuna when we get to Italy!"

Hibari turned around, shoved what looked like a bunch of peeled, sugared and fried bananas on a stick into his hands, and walked off. Yamamoto blinked at it, blinked at the vendor (who blinked right back at him), then loped off after Hibari, taking a tentative bite of the thing. Five bites later, he decided that he wanted more, but they turned into another area, and then into another area, and soon it became clear to Yamamoto that there would not be any more vendors selling whatever-that-thing-he-just-ate-was along the way.

Hibari walked, Yamamoto followed; Hibari attended to his business along the way, Yamamoto watched him do it; Hibari ignored whatever Yamamoto said, Yamamoto didn't particularly care. That was the routine that they had established in their years together as Guardians of the Vongola – it was the pattern that defined them, and never seemed to change no matter what country they happened to be in at the moment.

It nearly midnight by the time they arrived at their destination: a grand hotel sitting on top of a hill, built in the old Spanish style, surrounded by trees and carefully tucked away from the noise and smell of the city. The Rain Guardian stood off to one side, admiring the view of the sea from the lounge; Hibari was off at the front desk of the lobby, talking to the woman manning the front desk in Tagalog. Yet another place under the Cloud Guardian's control.

The sound of the elevator bell drew Yamamoto out of his thoughts, and he looked up in time to see Hibari entering one of the stalls. The Rain Guardian had to sprint to catch up to him, and literally threw himself in between the closing doors to in order to not get left behind. Hibari sent him a baleful look from where he had settled back against the wall, arms folded across his chest, legs crossed one in front of the other. Yamamoto only chuckled, scratched the back of his neck, and waited out the rest of the ride. The elevator music was some old tune with mandolins, violins and an incredibly high-pitched female singer. Probably a love song. Likely a lament.

When the doors opened on their floor, Yamamoto moved to stand in front of Hibari, hand outstretched, smile in place.

"Let me take the lead, for once."

One brief, measuring look, and a heartbeat later the keys were in his hands. Yamamoto offered another smile and stepped out first. Hibari became the other set of footsteps sounding off just behind his own as he moved down the corridor, twirling the key ring around one finger. Their room was at the very end, beside a picture window facing the waters. He turned the lock, opened the door, and found himself pushed in and shoved against the wall.

"Kyouya—"

"Shut up."

Because of the endless repetitions that defined their relationship, Yamamoto had grown used to seeing Hibari in pieces: the curve of an ear, the column of his neck, thin lips, gray eyes, a flash of collarbones, or maybe teeth. He used to try and keep the whole image of the other Guardian in mind whenever they came together. Somewhere down the line, however, he learned that it was easier and infinitely more thrilling to focus on things piece by piece instead, to study a different part each session, measuring it, turning it outside and in, pressing skin to skin, mapping out its connections to the whole with fingers, lips, tongue.

Hibari kissed him, and Yamamoto stopped thinking. He felt the Cloud Guardian's hand travel upward, starting just at his hairline, tracing a path down his jaw, resting at his collar, near his neck. A quiet, wordless threat.

"…Well." He smiled. He was not worried, not surprised. "What brought this on?"

Another kiss, tongue in mouth, rough and demanding. "Talking again," Hibari muttered as he pulled back. His other hand was moving, slipping between them, sliding just under Yamamoto's shirt and across the skin of his belly concealed beneath it. Yamamoto caught his wrist to keep him from straying down to the zipper of his pants. Hibari bit him and sent his hand down there anyway.

"You irritate me."

They made out – all locked lips, shared breath and busy hands – and danced backwards – tangling limbs and randomly throwing off coats/holsters/weapons – to their proper destination with the awkward ease of a like-minded pair who had done that sort of thing a million times before. Yamamoto closed the door behind them by shoving Hibari against it. Hibari tripped Yamamoto onto the bed by putting a knee in between his legs and pushing Yamamoto down by the shoulders. The Cloud Guardian then settled himself right on top of Yamamoto's hips as though he had always belonged there. The swordsman was unsure of what was more boggling: the sight of Hibari on top of him, or the way it felt to have Hibari on top of him, warm and heavy against his crotch. He had not thought much about how long it had been since the last time, at least not until Hibari had kissed him. At that moment, however, he was suddenly and painfully aware of it.

Hibari grabbed Yamamoto's tie and pulled the latter up, literally yanking him back to reality. "Don't blink," the man muttered. "I might get bored." His breath was hot and moist against Yamamoto's lips; his eyes were lost within the fringe of his hair. Yamamoto smiled and kissed him, nipping playfully at his bottom lip. He kept his arms out both because he needed to support their collective weight and because he knew it drove Hibari up the wall when he didn't reach out and touch him. Hibari reacted predictably enough: with a frustrated snarl, a bite to his neck, and the slow, almost methodical grinding of his hips against Yamamoto's. A moment later, after he was finished giving Yamamoto a mark that nothing short of a turtleneck could hide, Hibari broke away and let go of Yamamoto's tie. He moved his hands down and burrowed them between their bodies, fumbling with his buttons and Yamamoto's zipper at the same time. Yamamoto watched him with a fair amount of amusement before looping one arm around Hibari's waist and twisting about, switching their positions in a single, deft movement.

Trust in the infamous Cloud Guardian of the Vongola to attempt to kill you with a look, to make you think that you were in a disadvantageous position, even if _he_ was the one who was breathless and annoyed with need, hot and angry and so obviously horny. Yamamoto swatted off Hibari's attempts to rise up or hit him with practiced ease. He eventually put an end to the resistance completely by gathering up both the man's wrists and holding them fast above the other's head, and chuckled lightly when Hibari glared at him.

"You're so impatient, Kyouya," he murmured, as he worked to undo his tie. "Maybe I should show you how to pace yourself."

"Idiot."

Yamamoto responded by binding Hibari's wrists together and pulling the knot in tight. He kept one hand wrapped around those wrists and let the other travel across Hibari's body, starting from the man's belly and working his way up, shoving the ludicrous shirt he was wearing out of the way, revealing skin inch by inch. He worked with painstaking slowness, using his tongue using his tongue and mouth to lick or nip or suck or blow on the newly exposed skin at every turn, all the way until he had completely removed the man's shirt. He felt more than heard the hiss Hibari let out the moment his hand was unbuckling that belt, pushing those pants down. There was something fulfilling in the fact that he could make someone as proud as Hibari squirm. Yamamoto pulled back, briefly, to savor the moment and commit the vision of the family's strongest Guardian spread out beneath him before taking the other man in his hand, by the hilt.

"Let's do this slowly," he murmured, into the hollow of Hibari's throat. "You've got the stamina for that, right?" And he moved his tongue downward, just as he started stroking.

***

Sometime later, after Yamamoto made Hibari cum and the latter informed the former how much he hated him for giving such a good handjob with several bites down his neck and on his shoulder, they were pressed even closer together on the bed, Yamamoto on top and Hibari beneath, legs on legs, arms on arms, mouth on ear. Yamamoto had the other Guardian in his hand again, one finger teasing the tip of his cock; the fingers of his other hand were working their way into Hibari, carefully stretching the taut muscles of the man's entrance. Hibari's hands had long balled up into fists, clutching at the sheets; his eyes had fluttered shut, and he gasped soundlessly into the pillow pressed against his cheek. He trembled every time Yamamoto's fingers moved inside of him, but kept his voice locked up somewhere between his lungs and throat, refusing to cry out. Yamamoto continued his work, knowing full well that by the end of the evening he would end up breaking Hibari's resolve, with enough touch and enough tongue.

The tattoo on Hibari's back had expanded, Yamamoto realized, now that he had the leisure of stroking Hibari off and watching him from above without _too _much of a threat of being hit anywhere delicate. He remembered it being small and simple three years back; now the Cloud Guardian's whole back had become a canvas, a work-in-progress involving cranes in flight, water and _higebana _stretching from his shoulders all the way down to the end of his spine. Hibari had first gotten the thing sometime during their high school years, on the night that he took down the last rebellious yakuza boss in Japan. The Cloud Guardian added to it with every major achievement, every celebrity kill – Yamamoto knew that for a fact, even though he had never actually accompanied the man to the tattoo parlor. Dino Cavallone had always been the one given that particular privilege.

Hibari shuddered against his hands, drawing Yamamoto back to the present; he released the other man's cock, lifting his wet fingers to his lips, licked off the semen coating them. Hibari still tasted the same: sharp and bitter and burnt and strange. An acquired taste, something that one had to take in slowly – one looked for it again because they either wanted to figure it out or because they had failed to uncover everything about it. Cue addiction. Cue coming back, again and again and again.

"Stop dawdling."

Hibari was glaring at him again, even while he was sprawled flat on his belly, barely able to lift up anything beyond his hips. Yamamoto chuckled.

"Don't complain about this tomorrow."

The only response he received was Hibari moaning for the first time that evening.

Later, as Yamamoto leaned forward and pressed in deep, as he watched Hibari's back arch and felt the other man open up completely, he remembered, briefly, what it was like to be sheathed within another's body, to sleep with the only other man he would ever want to touch the way he was touching Hibari. He wondered, as they both rode through the high, if Hibari was thinking about the same thing.


	8. Ch7, Rest easy soldier

**Chapter Seven. Rest easy, soldier.**

* * *

_Puerto Princesa City, Palawan Island, Philippines._

It was still dark out by the time Yamamoto opened his eyes. He threw an arm out over the space beside him, fingers groping for the tell-tale dents and traces of warmth left behind by another. The pillow smelled of cigarettes and something sharp and cool. He looked past it, towards the bedside table; the clock read 3:22 AM. Yamamoto pushed himself up on his arms with a drawn-out yawn. "You changed your shampoo," he said, addressing the only other person in the room. Predictably, the only response he received was the sound of Hibari typing.

A sudden movement caught Yamamoto's attention. The man looked up in time to see Hibird fluttering down from somewhere, twittering out a happy little tune that he had never heard before. The swordsman grinned and stretched out his finger; the bird landed and twittered again, hopping unto his shoulder the moment he drew it close to his body. It still remembered him, apparently.

"You really bring this guy everywhere, don't you?"

"He has his uses."

Hibari was curled up in the chair by the dresser, typing away, focused on the computer screen in front of him. Only somebody like Hibari could look completely professional in nothing but his briefs and a dinky t-shirt, Yamamoto found himself thinking. This wild-haired, quiet-eyed person could kill him, and his loyalties to the Family weren't enough to stop him from doing it, if he really wanted to. It took a great effort on Yamamoto's part to remember that, especially when he was could still remember about how lean and bony Hibari's shoulders looked in the darkness of a bedroom, or how small his wrists had been in his hands.

"You're thinner now. Have you been eating right?"

"I eat enough."

All business, now that he was satisfied. Yamamoto didn't mind. At least a good round of slow, drawn-out fucking always made Hibari somewhat receptive to carrying out a normal conversation. The swordsman stood up, yawning again, stretching wide; he picked up his pants and slipped them on before wandering over to the fridge in the corner. He could bother himself with finding his shirt, taking a shower and maybe looking decent later. Hibird dutifully migrated from his fingers to his shoulder as he rummaged through the fridge, cross-checking what the hotel offered with how much it was going to cost them later.

"Girls," said Hibari, as Yamamoto was trying to decide whether he wanted a can of peanuts or a big bag of M&Ms.

"Eh?" the swordsman pulled his head out of the fridge, staring at Hibari questioningly.

"You said 'girls' earlier." The typing stopped. Hibari leveled him with another look. "Who came with you?"

"Ah. Haru picked me up," Yamamoto replied, turning back to the fridge. "We drove down to Namimori to fetch Kyoko-chan and Hana-san." The swordsman closed the door, bringing out a bag of peanuts, a bottle of Gatorade and the large, half-empty bottle of jasmine tea that Hibari must have brought with him, for his own consumption. He picked up a glass and walked over. "The train wasn't an option," he explained. "We had stuff with us."

"Hm."

Yamamoto set the tea and the glass down on Hibari's desk. "Don't even start, Kyouya," he said teasingly, rounding back to the bed. "I didn't come all the way here just for you to tell me that you won't come home with a crowd on your heels."

"No, I will come. Sawada is paying, is he not?"

"Mercenary."

Yamamoto threw himself back unto the bed, popping his bottle of Gatorade open. He fished some peanuts out and crushed them, setting the smaller bits down on his hand for Hibird. The little bird twittered its thanks and hopped about, pecking at the food. Yamamoto watched the bird with some fondness, occasionally stroking that small, warm body gently with his fingers. The typing started up again, over in Hibari's corner of the room.

"Gokudera Hayato is not with you."

Yamamoto's fingers paused. He did not even realize that he had stopped until the bird tilted its head, blinking up at him with black, beady eyes. The swordsman wondered if he was smiling. He probably was. Smiling, for him, was a part of dealing.

"Are you surprised?"

"No."

In grade school, Hibari was the half-feral kitten that Yamamoto would bring out of the rain at least twice a week, patch up (bandage up like a mummy) and sleep beside, only to wake up to an empty futon and an open window. When they met again in middle school, Hibari pretended that they did not know each other and Yamamoto was forced to ride along with it up until the latter's attempted suicide brought Tsuna and Gokudera into his life, and _their _associations with Reborn sparked Hibari's interest enough to keep the prefect hovering just within their peripheral vision. The relating-by-not-relating-much-at-all became the norm for the early half of the mafia game, but the Ring Battles against the Varia changed things, mostly because Dino had popped up and Yamamoto first realized just how much Gokudera loved Tsuna and just how much he envied it. It was after their trip to the future that they decided to start sleeping together, and the arrangement proved beneficial to the both of them when Hibari's activities with the yakuza and Yamamoto's assignments from Tsuna started to intersect at the most convenient times. That Yamamoto was one of the few Guardians whom Hibari could stand brought them together even more.

"Fucking to scratch an itch," Hibari had called it, after they had gone on their first "real date" (non-sexual encounter) at the old batting range in downtown Namimori. They had not talked about whatever they might have discussed or heard from their future selves, even if it was clear that the shadow of their influence determined so much of their present (it came out, instead, in small, off-handed comments in the years to follow). Their arrangement was something that Hibari deemed practical because it had no strings attached: they screwed around whenever they needed it, and after they were done he could go back to not thinking about Dino Cavallone and Yamamoto could go back to watching Gokudera Hayato kill himself over Tsuna. They fucked because it was a biological need, because Dino had taught Hibari to like fucking as much as he liked fighting, because Yamamoto could not be with Gokudera and if he _didn't_ fuck those feelings out, they were bound to drive him crazy and cause problems for the Family in the future.

What Yamamoto never told Hibari was that he believed that they slept together because they trusted each other, because maybe they could have been something if both of them had not ended up somewhere else looking at other people, because he was capable of loving a lot of people with the same kind of intensity and warmth all at the same time, because he had seen Hibari with Dino and seen Hibari _without_ Dino and from that, he knew that he wasn't the _only _one who wasn't getting what he wanted. Hibari, however, had pride the size of Japan and then some – that was the main reason why Yamamoto never said anything. Beyond that, Yamamoto already realized how fortunate he was to stay as close to the man as he was. Pushing too much was forcing Hibari to go somewhere that he did not want to go to, and that usually resulted in black eyes, broken bones and alarming radio silence until Hibari figured that it was time to scratch that old itch and they ended up starting all over again.

"I wonder what we'll be doing when we get back to Italy," Yamamoto said, as he went back to fussing over Hibird. "We've got lots of time before the wedding… I'm sure that we won't be busy with wedding plans every day."

"Why are you so cheerful about it? You left for a reason."

"Actually, I'm not sure I ever really left at all."

"…Hm."

Hibari was lighting up another cigarette; the ashtray beside his keyboard was already overflowing with old butts. Yamamoto watched the other man, wondering how many packs his fellow Guardian smoked a day. The Cloud Guardian had started the habit sometime after they had returned from the future, meriting a couple of snide comments from Gokudera (of all people) about the ironies of an anal-retentive prefect breaking his own rules. Yamamoto had not really been surprised. He remembered spotting Dino smoking before, on several different occasions.

"So I guess you'll be going to Tuscany once we land."

"No. I have business to attend to in Venice."

"…Oh?" Venice was a long way from the Tuscan region, which was an area traditionally controlled by the Cavallone Family. "What sort of business?"

Slow drag, exhale. Hibari turned back to his computer screen and began typing again.

"Go to sleep, Takeshi."

He saw it again, that subtle shift in the light within Hibari's eyes just before the man looked away from him, the way he seemed to bring that cigarette up to his lips in order to measure out silence. Yamamoto figured that maybe he could let it go for the moment. They had spent one whole evening and then some fighting together, walking together, fucking, talking – that was too much, too soon. He could not risk another long period of silence and nothing between them, not when he knew what he might face the moment they arrived in Italy.

Yamamoto coaxed Hibird unto his hand and set the little guy down on the table before settling back unto the bed. Hibari's spot had grown cold already, chilled by the regulated air pouring in from the air conditioner. He lay back, watching Hibari at work for but a moment longer. It was strange how distant the other man looked, even if he was just a few steps away.

"Good night, Kyouya."

He reached over and turned off the light.

* * *

_6:15 AM._

"…**So they were useless, huh."**

"Not entirely."

Spanner had replaced his usual "mystery flavor" lollipops with mangoes since their landing in the Philippines – he was eating one at that moment, as he communicated with Hibari via webcam. Hibari, on the other hand, had nothing but his cigarettes and the remnants of his jasmine tea. Hibird was napping on his head, nestled comfortably within his hair.

"My contacts will take care of sending the larger shipments to your laboratories. My report should already been in your inbox."

"**Mm, I already checked it. I guess that means that we'll both be free for Vongola in his dire time of need."**

"Sawada does not need me to hold his hand before his wedding."

"**Heh, well. That's going to be Mr. Right Hand Man's job, isn't it?"**

"Gokudera Hayato likes to _think_ it is." A pop-up message flashed onto screen, informing Hibari of another call. The man would recognize that number anywhere. "…We will talk later."

"**Roger."**

Hibari ended the communication, and paused for a good, long moment, watching the pop-up message without reading any of the words, listening to the notification ring in his ear like something worse than an actual telephone. The man's fingers twitched over the mouse button, just short of shutting his computer down. It would have been the smarter, less hassling thing to do. Hence, Hibari wondered what had possessed him to answer the call, especially when he found himself staring into a familiar pair of warm eyes through a liquid crystal screen.

"…**And here I was, thinking that you'd **_**never**_** pick up."**

"You are wasting my time, Cavallone."

"**I know."**

"If you knew, then why did you call?"

"**I wanted to hear your voice."**

Hibari chose not to answer because it was easier to do so. In the meantime, Yamamoto rolled unto his side and mumbled in his sleep.

* * *

_9:04 AM._

"Hey."

Yamamoto groaned when he felt Hibari prodding him awake. He felt as though he had only closed his eyes seconds ago.

"Wake up."

"Ngh. Jus' a little longer…"

The swordsman rolled over, trying to get away from the other Guardian's touch. Barely a minute later, Yamamoto let out a surprised yelp as he was quite rudely deposited, flailing limbs and blankets and all, unto the floor. He found himself very much awake and blinking up at Hibari, who was looking down at him with disdain.

"Our plane is leaving in an hour."

"Huh. Already?"

Hibari answered him by reaching for the shades hanging from the breast pocket of his suit and walking off. Yamamoto scrambled up, looking around: the hotel room was completely bare. There wasn't a trace of any of the stuff that had been scattered all over the place only a few hours ago.

"Whoa. Did you sleep at all?"

"I told you to get dressed."

Hibari turned away, pulling a cigarette out with his teeth as he left the room. Yamamoto sighed and started picking up the rest of his clothes from the floor; he stepped into the bathroom, snagging a towel from the rack. He could finish up in fifteen minutes – he was pretty positive that Hibari was going to leave him behind if he took any longer than that.

Yamamoto was not particularly surprised to find Kusakabe Tetsuya standing with Hibari in the lobby, zeroing in on his leader's orders and scribbling down notes whenever he had to; he had probably come in from Coron acting on Hibari's instructions, to handle whatever the latter could not be bothered with. Kusakabe acknowledged Yamamoto with a smile and a brief dip of his head once the swordsman was close enough, and then promptly walked off to fulfill to do his job. Unfortunately, that left him to deal with one foul-tempered Cloud Guardian.

"C'mon, you can't be THAT annoyed at having to fly with all of us to Italy, can you?"

He was fully aware that the mandatory crowding was not the real reason why Hibari looked like he was going to rip the first thing (or person) that earned his ire that day apart – as much as the man was barely tolerant of other people, it was a small issue, made smaller yet by his age. There was something else, something that Hibari was not going to talk about, something that Yamamoto could try to force out by mentioning stupid things and hoping that Hibari, in his irritation, would bite. Hibari, however, did not end up biting: the other man merely lit up his cigarette and left Yamamoto standing there without a word.

The silence remained unbroken throughout the drive to the airport, the plane to Coron, the jeepney ride to Krystal Lodge and all the way up to them walking across the planks to the cabin where Spanner and Hana were watching Kyoko and Haru play a native game involving a strange wooden board with hollowed out portions and tiny little shells.

"We're finally complete!" Haru exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Good thing too, because I just got off the phone with Gokudera-kun… the jet that'll take us home is already waiting for us back in Manila." She straightened herself up when she turned to face Hibari, switching from easygoing young woman to Vongola consigliore within a fraction of a second. "It's good to have you back on board, Hibari-san."

"…Hn."

"He's still as social as ever, isn't he?" Spanner drawled after Hibari had stalked off. Yamamoto chuckled. His eyes, however, were fixed on Hibari's back. Another dismissal.

"He had a long night."


	9. Ch8, News ways old things

**Chapter Eight. New ways, old things.**

* * *

_Ten years ago. Namimori City, Japan._

They had agreed to meet at the big temple in the Old District, and go to Sawada Tsunayoshi's house together – why they had not opted to go straight to the boy's house was uncertain. Perhaps it was because some of them wanted time to think, to meditate by watching the faces of the people who had gone with them and lose themselves in strange thoughts. They arrived at different times, sometimes in pairs or in groups, sometimes alone. They left at sunset, moving towards their destination as a single group.

Sawada Nana had prepared enough _onigiri_ and barley tea to feed an army, and she proceeded to dote and fuss over whoever came in. It did not matter whether she knew them or not: she was a mother, and these were her son's guests. If he said that they were welcome in their house, then she was out to do whatever she could to make them comfortable. There was also the fact that just a few hours back, her husband had sat her down for a long talk after he had spent all of last night staying up with their son. Preparing all that food had given Nana time away from Iemitsu while she still wasn't ready to react to what he had told her, and it had given her something to do with her hands, which always helped the thought process along. That Lambo Bovino, I-Pin and Bianchi were around to help her (sometimes by not really helping at all) was an extra blessing.

Tsuna himself was in his bedroom, which had, over the past week, reverted to something reminiscent of the strategic planning offices that people saw in war movies. There was barely any space for someone to walk around inside – all sorts of things were scattered all over the floor, including a number of strange-looking boxes with inscriptions of the sky at different weather conditions. His bed, much like any other spare surface in the area, was piled with stuff; it probably hadn't been slept in for a while. One of his walls was plastered with all sorts of papers, photographs and diagrams; another had been converted into an enormous map of the world, marked with pins and strings and post-its and tiny flags. Italy and Japan had the most markers and notes attached to it. Tsuna was standing in front of that map when Nana poked her head in to call him; he was facing America, scribbling something on a post-it stuck to Massachusetts.

"Tsu-kun, your guests are all here."

"Thanks. I'll be down in a bit."

When Tsuna smiled at her, Nana knew that it was his attempt at telling her, without actually saying the words, that everything was going to be okay somehow. Nana was not entirely reassured, but she knew that she could trust her son enough to let him take care of certain things. He had gone off and grown up someplace beyond her reach, and now it fell to her to adjust and accept.

The living room was oddly quiet, even before Tsuna actually came around – odd, given the way things usually were. The group he had assembled all only had one thing in common, and the things that set each one of them apart from the other were often grave enough to cause friction between any two people at any given moment. It was boggling for him, really, the sight of everyone calmly gathered together in his house.

"Good evening, Tenth!"

Gokudera Hayato was, of course, the first person to greet him; the half-Italian bolted from his seat and immediately crossed over. Yamamoto Takeshi lingered just behind him, thumbs hooked at the corner of his jeans, easy smile in place. Ryohei Sasagawa was shadowboxing in the corner; Reborn was dressed in his Master Pao-Pao get-up and kicking back in Bianchi's lap, watching the boxer warm up over his customary cup of coffee. Lambo was busy running around the room, squeezing himself into all sorts of impossible places, occasionally turning around to stick his tongue out at I-Pin. Fuuta was perfectly content on the floor, reading through the contents of the enormous tome that never seemed to leave his hands.

Others had come, beyond the people who regularly followed Tsuna around. Basil was sitting close to Fuuta, peering over the boy's shoulder as he worked. Chrome Dukuro was the slim shadow out on the patio, accompanied by the blank-faced Kaki Chikusa, a sullen-looking Joushima Ken and a grizzled old owl with mismatched eyes. Shamal was also out on the patio, smoking through a pack of expensive-looking cigarettes. Dino Cavallone – naturally accompanied by Romario – waved at Tsuna and offered his so-called little brother a sunny smile from his own seat before turning back to finish his discussion with Iemitsu, Tsuna's father. Hibari Kyouya, on the other hand, was Dino's complete opposite in both looks and disposition: the prefect was leaning against the far wall, watching Chrome and her companions with narrowed eyes. Lancia was doing his own fair share of watching from his own place in the room; his arms were folded serenely across his chest, but his expression betrayed him.

"Tenth, are you all right?"

Gokudera's voice drew Tsuna out of his thoughts. Tsuna smiled and nodded. Looking up into Gokudera's concerned eyes and then over at Yamamoto's wordless, unquestioning support was enough of a reminder of what he needed to do. The boy cleared his throat, drawing the attention of everyone else in the room towards him.

"U-um. Thanks for coming, everyone! I have some really important things to tell you guys today. I also need to ask for your help, if you're willing to hear me out."

_What is it like, being trapped in there for so long?_

_Interviewing me, are you?_

It was strange how the first thing he thought about the moment he tried to search for the right words to say was the first and last conversation he had ever had with the Rokudo Mukuro from ten years into the future. He had met the older Mist Guardian on his last day in the future. He had been unceremoniously ripped away and tossed back into the present before they had managed to finish their conversation, before he had been given the time to think about why Mukuro – the Guardian who was supposed to hate him the most – had smiled at him.

_When you chase a new future, Vongola, do not forget who you are. You're my one source of entertainment… it'd be a shame to lose you, don't you think?_

The Vongola Ring of Sky used to feel odd on his finger, or cold and heavy against his chest whenever it hung around his neck. Tsuna, in that moment, was barely aware that it was there, touching his skin.

"I've decided to accept my position as the head of the family… I am doing this because we have nine years and ten months before the future turns into exactly what it was when we saw it with our own eyes. The sooner we start moving, the more time we will have to prepare."

* * *

_Present day. _

"Boss… boss, please wake up."

"Mm…?"

Sawada Tsunayoshi woke up slowly, still hanging somewhere between his living room ten years back and the car he was riding in at present. As such, it took him a bit of time to realize that he had half his face neatly buried into his companion's shoulder.

"A-AH!"

Chrome Dukuro chuckled, watching Tsuna flail away to a respectable distance with serene amusement. "I am perfectly all right with being your pillow, boss," she mildly informed him. "Sleeping in a car for more than thirty minutes can be extremely uncomfortable."

"B-b-b-b-but—"

His Mist Guardian only chuckled, and turned to face the people occupying the front area of the car. "Basil, are we nearly there? The boss is awake now."

"Yes, Chrome-dono… our journey hath nearly come to an end!" Basil turned about and offered Tsuna a gallant smile. "Thou art well, Sawada-dono?"

"I'm fine! I just have this slight crick in my neck… aaaah. There. I'm _much _better now." Tsuna rotated his head a little before straightening up and smiling at his father's personal assistant. "How much longer?"

"A mere quarter of an hour to go before we reach our destination. I hath taken the liberty to send word ahead to Gamma-dono about our arrival."

"Tsuna-nii, you're awake!"

Lambo Bovino popped up from somewhere beside Basil, quickly followed by I-Pin; gone were the cow prints on Lambo's end and the red chongsam on I-Pin's. Tsuna reached over to pat them both on the head. It was odd to see both teenagers dressed so formally, but given the occasion, it was only appropriate.

"I hope you guys didn't give Basil and Chrome a hard time while I was asleep."

"We didn't, boss, but that's mostly because I made sure to keep Lambo from sticking stuff up your nose. Well, it's true!" I-pin huffed, glaring at Lambo when the boy started protesting. "Don't try to hide it!"

"I… I wasn't doing anything!" Lambo immediately turned to Tsuna for support, as though his boss wasn't the offended party in the argument. "You believe me, right?!"

"He's lying, Tsuna-nii!"

"Quiet, you two," Chrome gently cut in. "You'll disturb the driver."

Tsuna sat back without comment, content with simply being there, basking in the warmth and noise of his current company. He secretly enjoyed long car rides with his closest family members; due to recent events, it seemed as though he was only truly allowed to be himself when he was on the road, en-route to yet another big meeting or some other important function, hidden behind the refuge of tinted windows.

"Ah, now I remember why I wanted to wake you up… the Consigliore phoned in earlier, boss," Chrome explained, the moment Tsuna turned towards her. "She wanted to report to you personally, but I did not want to disturb you."

"Oh, Haru-san's back?"

"Yes, together with Spanner-san, Yamamoto-san and Hibari-san. Kyoko-san and Hana-san are also with her."

"Are they well?"

"It appears so." Chrome's smile softened. "Haru-san told me to tell you that Spanner-san brought us souvenirs from the Philippines – mangoes, I believe? She also wanted me to tell you that your fiancé is safe and well."

Tsuna smiled.

"…Let's see how quickly we can finish this meeting up, then, shall we?"

* * *

_Elsewhere – or more specifically, the Giglionero Estate._

Aria Giglionero had woken up sometime before sunrise with the inexplicable urge to fix her office. It was not an odd thing for her to want to be as organized about things as possible, but Aria was the sort of woman who, when faced with the choice between nursing an injury and finding the person who had wronged her, she often opted to attend to the latter, preferably by raging across the world in search of the bastard so that she could gun him down personally. People like her neglected the finer details due to circumstance, and always promised themselves that they would get back to them at some later date. Things, however, had been rather crazy as of late, and Aria had to admit that she had recently fallen into the habit of putting off a whole lot of things ranging from her personal health to setting her household in order.

Nevertheless,_ knowing_ that she had not been a particularly responsible person did _not_ prevent Aria from spending five whole minutes standing in the doorway to her office, staring helplessly at the warzone that the place had become over the past few months. She allowed herself another moment to marvel a little at the fact that she had not noticed just how bad it was sooner, and then promptly rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Now that she had properly slowed down, it was time to get back to the actual living part of her life, and part of living included cleaning up.

As the women of the Giglionero Family rarely every lived past the age of fifty, each and every one of them had made it a point to live short but glorious lives. The family archivists, in turn, made it a point to meticulously document each and every detail, and carefully preserved the things that their leaders left behind at their passing. The records and the reverence that the Giglionero held for the belongings of their beloved dead was not so much a strange quirk as it was a necessary practice: the Giglionero constantly faced the prospect of their very active leaders going off and dying on them without fully finishing everything that they had started. As such, anything that could be used as some sort of guide to what the previous boss could have been planning was important to the woman who had to fill in her shoes. In Aria's case, she was usually either very grateful or totally apathetic towards all the memorabilia, depending on the circumstances. Now that she had wasted her morning away attempting to catalog everything while occasionally sneezing at the dust she managed to kick up in the process, however, she was feeling a justified amount of righteous rage.

"You look like you're having fun over there."

"Say that again and I'm going to rip out your balls with a spoon, boy."

Gamma stepped in with a sheepish laugh, throwing his hands up in a gesture both of warding against his leader's infamous temper and as an apology. The younger man was fresh from the garage from the looks of it, covered quite liberally in the soot and grease that came along with fussing over cars, motor bikes and war robots for hours on end. Somehow, the green bandanna, the ripped blue jeans and white shirt that he was wearing at the moment made him look a whole lot scruffier than he ought to, given the fact that he was the boss' right hand man. In some ways, however, it was oddly appropriate… Gamma was always going to be the wild young pup she had literally fished out of a trash dump, brought home and nursed back to health almost twenty years back.

"Want me to help you with that, boss?"

"Yes. After you've showered."

"And after our meeting with the Vongola." Gamma waved his phone around when his leader gave him a questioning look. "I was just on the phone with them. They'll be here in about two hours."

Aria blinked at Gamma, blinked at the bookshelf in front of her, blinked at the mess around her, and then blinked at Gamma again.

"…Well."

***

The sweet smell of flowers and the feel of soft hands patting his face drew Irie Shouichi out of the maze of light, punk rock and unfinished equations that he usually dreamt about; the boy cracked an eye open, and found himself staring at Uni Giglionero, whose face only inches away from his.

"Erm. Good morning, Princess."

"Hi! Did you sleep well? You weren't cold or anything?"

"No, not at all."

To his credit, Shouichi dealt with the prospect of waking up, quite literally, to a girl sitting on his chest and peering into his face with perfect grace: it was rapidly becoming routine for him, and it would not do for him to shriek every time Uni decided to wake him up in that fashion. The young man straightened up as soon as Uni had backed up to give him space; he pulled off his headphones, yawning, blinking a little blearily at all the warmth and sunlight. The sound of Uni's laughter brought his head out of the clouds, and Shouichi turned about to see the girl beaming up at him. She had hopped away from where he was sprawled on the cushioned white porch swing, skipping off the porch, down the steps and out into the rose garden.

"You're such a sleepyhead, Shou-nii."

"That's because you always make me stay up and read bedtime stories to you."

"That was _years _back," Uni immediately quipped. The girl stamped her foot, puffing her cheeks out. "I'm too old for that stuff now!" she might have added more, but a big hand had landed on top of her head, diverting her attentions up to the impossibly large man that it belonged to.

"Anger's going to give you wrinkles, Princess," Tazaru mildly remarked, with a sun-baked smile down at the daughter of his boss. The man pulled off his work gloves and ruffled the girl's hair as he moved past her; he had probably been out in another section of the garden, killing slugs or pulling at weeds. "You might want to look presentable really soon, Irie-san. Nosaru just called from the outpost… the Vongola boss will be here soon."

"Yes, I'm aware. Has Lady Aria been informed?"

"Gamma's taking care of that."

Shouichi slipped off the bench, recovered his music player and the book he had been reading earlier from where they had fallen on the floor. It had been quite some time since he had had such a good nap. He instantly blamed it on all the madness that had taken place just a month ago. The late night planning sessions and hair-raising, holy-shit-I-am-too-busy-fearing-for-my-own-life-to-think-straight moments had done wonders for his health. While the whole affair had honed his fighting skills beyond Ducking Really Fast or Hiding Really Well, it had certainly lessened his propensity to crumple to his knees from panic-induced stomach aches. Constantly collapsing, he had discovered, was bad for the image and hardly did a thing for one's over-all level of productivity.

"I'll go and get ready. Please have someone call me when it's time, Tazaru-san."

"Of course."

It still unnerved Shouichi a little, how Aria included him in nearly all of the major discussions regarding her family's survival, how Gamma and the others viewed him as a comrade, how Uni thought of him as the big brother she had never had. There were many times when he had been tempted to tell them that he really wasn't anything, that he wasn't worthy of the amount of trust that they invested in him and apparently, in a future parallel to their own time, he had been responsible for the ruthless destruction of the Giglionero, the loss of their rings and their lives for one man's crazy vision of a new world order. Even though it had been years since Sawada Tsunayoshi had found him and changed the future for the better, even after working for every day of his life from that point until the present to prove both to himself and to his newfound friends that he wasn't going to turn around and stab them in the back, there were times when Shouichi closed his eyes and dreamt not of an endless symphony of coding, but of a round white machine and a silver-haired man with a razor-sharp smile and empty eyes.

***

In spite of the fact that they were on top of the underworld scene in Italy and all across the globe, members of the Vongola carried themselves in a fashion fitting to any mafia family with a legacy as old and as proud as theirs: discretely, with just the right amount of pomp and circumstance to appease older and more traditional-thinking families and keenly remind the younger, more wild groups of their place in the order of things. In some ways, they were even a little more prudent than the usual, reflecting a more Japanese sensibility than an Italian one when it came to what the Vongola seemed to think of as proper versus what wasn't – unsurprising, given the fact that the current boss and most of his inner circle had grown up in Japan.

The Vongola Family as a whole had a few other strange and notable quirks, but all of them fell within what was generally considered the normal level of eccentricity that a prestigious mafia family ought to be allowed to possess. There was, however, a reason why whole ballrooms fell silent the moment a Vongole entered the area, or why the more superstitious (or religious?) among the lot insisted that Sawada Tsunayoshi and his Six Guardians were prophets, and their mansion was a house full of ghosts and demons. Half of any group's image and prestige in underworld was actually based on whatever the right people happened to have said, even if they were subtle half-truths or all-out lies. As it was, there was one particular story, whispered by anyone from the lowest grunts to the most successful bosses, about a future that had never happened and how the Vongola Family had saved the world from the shadows of the mafia game.

Official documents and a number of incriminating eyewitness reports from ten years back indicated that Sawada Tsunayoshi, his Guardians, Sasagawa Kyoko, Miura Haru and the Arcobaleno Reborn had disappeared from the radar one by one. The details behind how that had happened were sketchy, but the most popular version was that each one of them had vanished after reportedly being shot by one of the Bovino Family's Ten Years Later Bazookas and not returning after the prescribed ten-minute period. The Vongola Family had, of course, taken great pains to covering things up and making it look like the Japanese side of their group was still around, but only so much could be done, especially against some of the nosier rivals on their side of town. Contrary to how they had each gone missing one after the other and in different places across Namimori, Tsuna and his companions had all reappeared at roughly the same time nearly a month after they had vanished. One week later, the boy finally gave his official stand with regard to his succession as the Tenth Generation Boss of the Vongola, declaring his intentions to rise to meet his responsibilities effective immediately – a stark contrast to how he had been lukewarm to the prospect of filling in the position just days before his disappearing act.

The rest of the story was far easier to piece together from that point onward: the Ninth gracefully accepted his retirement, and Tsuna became the head of his family just as he entered his second year of middle school. Although the boy remained based in Japan for the most part, he and his Guardians travelled to Italy during every one of their breaks, orienting themselves with the mafia game on their home territory and smoothing over all of the rough patches that came with the transfer of power from one leader to the next. The Vongola also took a far more aggressive stance under Tsuna's command, moving in ways comparable to how Giotto – Vongola Primo – had run things in the starting years of the family. Tsuna seemed to collect allies and followers wherever he went, and – as if his own influence and power were not enough – his Six Guardians filled in their own roles marvelously, consistently exceeding the expectations of those around them. By the time they were in the latter half of their high school years, the Vongola completely dominated the local scene. By the time they hit university and formally migrated to Italy, their family was the strongest organized crime syndicate in the world. Although Tsuna constantly claimed that he was not out to lead anybody who did not wish to be controlled, it was generally understood that the word of the Vongola was law. There was also the fact that Tsuna was, in some ways, _not_ the person that rival bosses had to worry about. In some cases, some of his Guardians were actually the scarier ones.

Many wondered how exactly the Vongola had managed to grow so large and so strong in such a short period of time, how Tsuna had basically turned the mafia game on its head, completely recreating the crime world as criminals knew it. At the end of it all, it seemed to boil down to one thing: the Vongola seemed to always act with great, almost uncanny foresight, countering the movements of their rivals with ridiculous ease. There were also several notable incidents where the Tenth had reputedly been prepared for circumstances that were absolutely impossible to predict or account for, as though he already knew what would happen. It was easy for most to pass it off as luck – there had been others like that before in the game, people blessed with the good fortune of having everything simply work out for them. Of course, doing so did not change how unsettled other bosses felt whenever the Vongola stepped into the picture.

Aria Giglionero considered these things as she ascended from the Roman bath beneath the Giglionero estate, emerging from rose-scented waters and stepping into the large sheets that her maids held out for her – she stood still as they dried her off, making no move to assist them as they dressed her in the white robes of her seat. She was familiar with the ritual, and although she did not entirely approve, she was a Giglionero, and women of the Giglionero knew the importance of tradition more than anybody. Besides, the enforced passivity gave her time to think.

"What is this meeting about, anyway? You never told me, boss."

"I didn't bother because I'm sure that it's nothing out of the usual: updates, vineyard profits, shared stocks, gossip, maybe something about what the Skylark has been up to on the weapons front if _I'm_ really lucky. Maybe he'll have the Smoking Bomb with him, if _you're_ really lucky."

Gamma snorted in response; he was hovering within the maze of damask curtains obscuring the bath from the view of anyone at the entrance. "I don't see how that's supposed to be a good thing," the blond remarked. "That kid hates my guts."

"Gokudera Hayato hates a lot of people."

"It's not the same thing, boss. With the way he acts, you'd think I murdered his mother."

Aria wisely refrained from answering. Gamma was right, of course… sometimes, the Vongola Decimo and his companions stared at people as though they were seeing ghosts, as if they were seeing the shadow of something that wasn't really there in the eyes of another. Gokudera Hayato – Tsuna's Storm Guardian – was the one who saw ghosts the most in the lot, and Gamma seemed to be one of the people who haunted him the most. Gamma, and Irie Shouichi.

The maids finished layering the robes about her body, and Aria waved them off in order to tie the corset and the last of the ribbons herself, as the ceremony decreed: she sealed the magic of ritual with a litany of names, invoking her predecessors with each knot. The maids backed away the moment she finished, and Aria straightened up, beckoning Gamma towards her. He came immediately, holding the white hat and the pacifier of her foremothers in his hands.

"We need to be understanding, Gamma," she murmured as she went on her knees. "They've _seen_ things, and I think that the knowledge that comes with whatever they've seen does take its toll on them. They're still children, after all."

"I know that, boss," he quietly returned, as he chained the pacifier about her neck, as he placed the hat upon her head. "Either way, I guess it shouldn't really matter. They saved the Princess. That's enough for me."

Irie was waiting for them outside of the main hall; he bowed the moment Aria appeared, and would not straighten up until the woman gave him permission to do so. She smiled at him in order to put him at ease – Tsuna had introduced this young man to her on their very first meeting, claiming that Irie was his Seventh Guardian, another person that the Vongola Decimo could trust his life and everything that he was to. In the past few months, Aria had come to see why: this bespectacled, sullen young man who communicated with computers better than he could with other people had helped her bring her daughter back. That was enough for Aria to keep him always to her left, as Gamma was to her right. That was enough for Aria to view him as she would her own family.

The sound of Uni's voice was the first they heard the moment they opened the doors – Aria was greeted with the sight of her daughter decked out in a miniature replica of the outfit she herself was wearing, happily chattering away with I-Pin, Chrome Dukuro and Basil as they watched Lambo Bovino pluck out an odd, happy little tune on the grand piano in the corner of the hall. Sawada Tsunayoshi had been watching them fondly from his seat; the young man, however, immediately turned away from them and stood up the moment Aria came in. The guileless smile and clarity in his eyes never ceased to amaze Aria. She had thought that no one could emerge from their world unaltered and unscarred. Meeting Tsuna and seeing him crush the vilest monsters in the mafia game between his fists with tears in his eyes had taught her the true meaning of infinity.

"Lady Giglionero." Tsuna bowed, moved to lift her hand and bring the ring upon her finger to his lips. "Thank you for allowing me to see you on such short notice."

"No need for thanks, Vongola Decimo. Shall we get down to business?"


	10. Ch9, No place like home

**Chapter Nine. No place like home.**

* * *

_The airport._

Kyoko had been to Italy on several occasions, with her first being the summer trip that Tsuna had arranged for all of his friends soon after she had "officially" been associated with their group – she had fallen in love instantly with the country's chilling breeze, blinding sunlight and vibrant colors, and made it a point to come back whenever she was able to. While it had been a little intimidating at first, walking down cobblestone streets or eating gelato on a bench with men in black suits looming over her, but the young woman had quickly grown used to it: she was their boss' most precious person in mind, and they were merely doing their job by protecting her. It wasn't long before she was able to take everything into stride, and enjoy every spare moment she had, in the company of her boyfriend, her friends, and the people who were helping them change the future.

Haru sprung into action the moment they had landed; she had been using the plane's emergency phone nearly every time Kyoko had turned to watch her friend during their flight, and now that they were on the ground she was using her cellular phone, fluidly switching between Italian, English, French, German and Japanese depending on who happened to be on the other end of the line. Kyoko found herself watching her old friend with a fair amount of amazement. She had never actually seen Haru at work before, although Tsuna took every opportunity to praise her.

"Haru has really come a long way, hasn't she?"

Kyoko smiled at Hana as the older girl slipped into the seat beside her – Haru had led them to a private lounge the moment they had stepped off the plane, insisting that they cool their heels off while she took care of things. A few members of their accompanying bodyguard detail were bustling in and out of the lounge, running errands on Haru's instructions; the rest had been allowed to relax, and were currently gathered over at a table in the corner for a round of cards over some high-quality Scotch and some nice-smelling cigars. Spanner was playing the part of dealer – or more of, the robot that he had built during the long plane ride was dealing, and he was taking notes on its performance. Yamamoto was over at the bar, chatting with the blushing young bartender manning the area. Hibari had wandered off somewhere soon after they had landed, pointedly ignoring anybody who bothered to ask where he was going and if he was going to come back; since Kusakabe was mingling with Haru's bodyguards and did not look alarmed by his leader's departure in the slightest, however, everyone could only assume that the Cloud Guardian still planned on sticking around with them for the moment.

"So. Nervous?"

"Um… I don't really know, actually. Maybe it hasn't hit me yet." Kyoko ducked her gaze sheepishly, staring down at her hands. "I mean, it hasn't been all that long since he proposed to me."

"That's true."

Kyoko could not exactly believe it, now that she had actually said the words – prior to that moment, the young woman had not thought much of the fact she and Tsuna had been engaged for a little over a month, and they were getting married in less than half a year. She did not think that things were going too fast, given the fact that they had pretty much grown up together. She did not think that they were going too slow either, given the sort of things that Tsuna had to deal with. On the day that he had told her about the Vongola, it had become clear to Kyoko that while she was the first in Tsuna's heart, there were things that he had to take care of first. She was an incredibly patient person: it came with having a brother like hers. She could wait.

Suffice to say, Kyoko had grown so used to waiting that when the day that Tsuna finally set his gloves aside long enough to ask her if it was perfectly all right for him to ask for her hand in marriage, she had been completely floored by the proposal, and unable to do anything but stare blankly at Tsuna until her husband-to-be started fretting, in which the full realization of what had just happened dawned upon her, and Kyoko had laughingly told him yes, and yes, and yes, over and over again.

"…What are you thinking about now, Kyoko-chan? Your head's in the clouds."

"Oh, nothing much." The young woman swept some stray hair out of her face and beamed at Hana. "Now that I think about it," she mused, "I've always thought that you and Ryo-nii would already be married by the time Tsu-kun proposed to me."

Hana scoffed. "Your beloved older brother is being an extreme idiot about the matter, as usual. It's a good thing I've already got it all planned out when the time comes," the woman added airily, as she leaned back and studied her nails. "At this point, all I need is for him to say the word."

Kyoko did not doubt that. She knew Hana well enough to be one hundred percent certain that her best friend probably had a wedding dress, a catering service, a reception hall and a date picked out and on standby for the actual event to happen.

"Haaaaah! That was _exhausting_."

Haru plopped down on one of the seats in front of them and leaned back, fanning herself with her hand. "I was just on the phone with Chrome-chan," the dark-haired young woman announced. "She and the boss are out on a meeting, but they should be back by later tonight. I had her mention you to Tsuna," she added, turning to Kyoko with a smile. "He probably misses you a lot."

"Mm, well. The feeling's mutual, really…" Kyoko trailed off and ducked her head, trying to hide her blushing from her friends. Hana and Haru only laughed, making Kyoko blush even more. "_Mou_!" she huffed, pouting at the pair. "I'm going to jump at every chance I can get to tease the two of you from here on!"

"Go ahead," Haru impishly returned. "I've got nothing to hide! I dunno about Hana though~"

"Now exactly _what_ is _that_ supposed to mean?"

The bantering continued in that fashion until all three of them were reduced to helpless fits of giggling. Yamamoto came around to find the three young women flopped back in their seats, breathless from laughing too much.

"It's good to see you girls having fun." The swordsman grinned at the trio as he set down the tray he had been carrying. "Here: I thought that you all might want to have something to drink."

"Thanks, Yamamoto-kun! Ah… it's a good thing you came around. I checked in with the family earlier," she explained, noting the Guardian's curious look. "Ryo-kun will be coming around to pick us up in a bit, since Gokudera-kun apparently can't be bothered with it."

"Oh? What's he busy with?"

"I have no idea! If it's not something for the wedding, he's probably storming around, chasing after god-knows-what."

"That's just like him, I suppose."

Kyoko watched the exchange quietly, noting Haru's exasperation, noting Yamamoto's easy dismissal. There was nothing peculiar about the exchange – or at least it didn't _look_ like there was. She knew better. She had not missed the way something in Yamamoto's eyes and the set of his shoulders had changed, right at the mention of Gokudera Hayato's name.

_You look like you're dodging a blow_, she wanted to tell him, and then she thought better of it. She already knew the story, even if Tsuna had not really mentioned it. She had learned it by watching, because watching was the one thing that a girl in her position had to learn to be good at.

"Where are you going?" Hana asked at that moment, bringing Kyoko out of her thoughts. The young woman looked up just in time to see Yamamoto moving off with a glass in hand.

"Back to the bar. Kyouya's come around again."

"But I thought he – oh."

As one, the three young women watched Yamamoto leave, heading towards the thin, wild-haired figure now occupying one of the stools and pointedly ignoring the bartender that Yamamoto had been so friendly with just a few moments ago. "He's not exactly the friendly type, is he?" Hana remarked, watching the pair from afar with raised eyebrows. Haru chuckled.

"That would be the nicest way of saying it… Hibari-san pulls through whenever we really need him, though, so I'm not complaining." Haru folded her arms behind her head and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. "It's weird," she said after a moment, "but I could almost swear that Hibari-san's been just a little more irritated than usual since he joined us."

**

"Here. Since you didn't eat on the plane."

Hibari blinked at the glass dangling in front of him, and the respective hand that it happened to be attached to. Yamamoto rounded into his line of vision in the next moment, slipping into the stool beside him. The swordsman's smile didn't waver, in spite of the fact that Hibari scoffed and turned away. "Ryohei is coming around to pick us up in a bit, I think," he announced, bringing the glass to his own lips when he noticed that the other wasn't going to take it. "I figured I ought to let you know, just to make sure that you _don't _try to kill him when he pops up."

"Noisy."

"The others are busy."

"And Gokudera Hayato must be out to avoid you."

Yamamoto smiled again and didn't say a word.

Ryohei Sasagawa arrived at lunch time, greeting the lot with exuberance and cheer typical to the white-haired boxer. His enthusiasm took on a slightly different turn when he finally saw Hana, and he immediately latched on to the young woman as though he was her overgrown puppy more than her boyfriend of five years. That did not, however, stop him from butting in on just about everybody's business during the whole ride home, snapping back and forth from person to person, always launching himself head first into every conversation he listened in on. Having Ryohei around was a little like having the sun itself turn towards one at full power, Yamamoto realized, and oddly, he had really missed it. Hanging out with the boxer – the only other sportsman in the family – made him remember his own friends among the Hanshin Tigers.

Of course, Yamamoto's reunion with Ryohei was nothing but another pleasant distraction. He had not left Italy under the best circumstances, and somehow, the fact that all was forgiven did not really do much to ease the guilt of leaving. Now he had returned, come back to his second home and his real job after three years of standing still. It would not be long before he was going to be forced to deal with all the emotional baggage that he had left at the doorstep of the Storm Guardian's office back in the mansion, on the night that he had decided to just turn around and walk away.

* * *

_The Vongola Mansion._

Reborn – revered, at several different periods in history and sometimes all at once as one of the Seven Arcobaleno, Italy's greatest assassin, the renowned Vongole None's most trusted advisor and the home tutor to the famed Vongola Decimo – woke up to a perfect day. His definition of what constituted a perfect day had, of course, become less rigid over time, and by merit of his being Arcobaleno, Reborn had lived and _re_-lived for more years than a human being should have been allowed to live. For that particular morning after, a "perfect day" meant waking up with one's cheek pressed against what was probably the softest pillow in the world and the rest of one's body sprawled on what was probably the softest _bed_ in the world, with soft autumn sunlight filtering through the curtains and the sound of one's beloved singing from the bathroom. Reborn cocked his head to the side without actually lifting his chin from the pillow, wondering why the tune was familiar to him. He did not manage to figure out what song it was, but he had, at least, discovered something new: that Bianchi had a great voice.

Reborn let out a long, drawn-out yawn. The man pushed himself out of bed afterward, kicking off the sheets and stretching wide, much like a cat after a long nap. He might've groped for his smokes, maybe wandered over to the espresso machine in the corner to prepare his usual fix, but it was hard to ignore the fact that the bathroom door was open. Reborn eventually gave in to his whims, and traced a path through the islands of discarded articles of clothing and other paraphernalia on the floor. The floorboards creaked under his weight; they were cool beneath the soles of his feet, still chilled from the touch of the other night. He entered the bathroom and found Bianchi gloriously naked in the shower stall, singing, swaying her hips to the beat in her head.

…_Well now._

Reborn stayed where he was, content, for the moment, with taking the sight of Bianchi in and the many details that lent themselves so generously to a wandering eye like his own: the perfect Coke bottle cut of her body (the sensual rounded edges of those hips), the red of her hair darkened by the water (it snaked down right to the middle of her back now). Her tapered hands and fingers, wrapped about the handle of the shower head. Her tattoos and battle scars, interplay of intricate black patterns and ragged white canyons across sun-browned skin. Her mouth, a miniature bridge carrying a song across its surface to curl up in his ear. He saw her and he wanted her again, abruptly and almost painfully, but he was a man who valued control.

"Oh, you're up."

Bianchi said this as she glanced at him from over one perfect shoulder, lips curved in a small, sly smile. A full grown woman, but she would always be just a girl in his opinion. Living a life like his and seeing the things that he had made everyone around him feel so young to Reborn, with the exception of the six others who wore a pacifier on a heavy chain about their neck. Bianchi, however, felt even younger to the assassin than she ought to have been – he figured that it must have been because of the purity of her beliefs, and the blinding devotion she had shown him for so long, unshaken by the number of times that he had pushed her away or outright ignored her. There was that, and the games she insisted on playing with him, every time he had a moment to spare. Last night's session had involved Reborn attempting to work and Bianchi not-so-discretely distracting him by introducing him to the finer points of striptease, an art that she had honed to perfection alongside her poison cooking techniques. Suffice to say, Bianchi had won.

"Why don't you join me? You look so… ah. What's the word? Lonely," she purred, with a significant look between his legs. Reborn smirked and moved forward.

"I have a schedule to keep, you know," he said, as he slipped behind her and snaked his arms about her waist and over her belly.

"You always do," she evenly returned, as she turned her face up to the water. "Besides, schedules are made to be broken." She moved the shower head, directing the spray over them both just as he started nibbling on her shoulder. Sometime after his mouth had somehow migrated from her shoulder to the back of her ear, Bianchi turned around to kiss him; washing herself no longer seemed as important as teasing his tongue into her mouth. Three heartbeats, and Bianchi let the shower head slip from her fingers, not noticing it slide harmlessly to the floor.

By the time a maid came up, bearing a breakfast tray for two into their room, Reborn was sitting up in bed, back to the headrest and reading glasses perched on his nose as he skimmed through the morning newspaper. Bianchi was draped over his body like another blanket, like second skin. Occasionally, she reached up, to run an idle finger across his chest and down his jaw line. Occasionally, he responded by lifting her hand to his lips and kissing the tips of her fingers.

_Funny how you spent most of your second life trying to avoid waking up like this._

It had, in all fairness, seemed like a good decision back then: get more out of life by getting more out of dames by never tying yourself down to a single dame, because beyond the sounds and face that each one of them made in bed, all dames were generally the same and it was a most noble goal to do a Kundera and become a connoisseur of the one thing that made one dame different from another. He still did not know what had made stop, and why it had to be with Bianchi – he had just woken up one day, much like how he had done so at the moment, and looked down to see Bianchi in his arms and changed his routine before he even realized that he was really changing it (the realization came at a later date, over drinks and Sawada Iemitsu ribbing him every time they downed another glass). Perhaps it had been just another decision without purpose or reason – another sudden impulse, not uncommon to a man like him. It might have also been that one time where he had come home from another job to Bianchi waiting up with Leon curled up in her lap and the usual macchiato and thinking to himself that really, even with all of his (mis)adventures she's always been there. Or maybe it was from him seeing the Ninth – his old boss and comrade – getting shuttled around in a wheelchair and the Tenth – his new boss and kid-that-he-used-to-torment-back-in-Japan – wearing another band on a finger just beside the Sky Ring and him thinking to himself "Ah, shit, I'm getting old."

Bianchi was letting her fingers walk across his skin again. Reborn kissed her hand once more and decided that it was time to stop thinking about it.

"I overheard Hayato and Basil talking again just before the boss left. Haru is arriving today?"

"Yes, with more of the family in tow." Reborn reached over Bianchi's shoulders, picking up a piece of toast from the tray. "The mansion will be noisy again."

"Come now, _mi amore_, you and I both know that a part of you _enjoys_ the noise." Bianchi tweaked his nose for emphasis, and chuckled when the man raised an eyebrow at her. "Turn that pout right side up, I was just kidding." The woman twisted about, stealing her own piece of toast to eat; she took her first bite and chewed on it slowly, pensive, savoring the taste. "I'm of the opinion that it's been too quiet these past few years," she said after a moment. "This will be a welcome change of pace."

"It will be for some of us."

Bianchi knew exactly who Reborn was referring to – beyond the fact that it was a love problem (those had always been of special interest to her) part of the party in question was related to her, and, whether he liked it or not, she cared. Nevertheless, the years had tempered Bianchi's tendency to nose her way into any and every romantic tangle that her friends got themselves into. Now the woman only stepped in on request, or when the situation became unbearable for the people in question. Since Gokudera Hayato was never going to request for her help and the situation he was currently in had not quite reached the levels of unbearable yet, Bianchi was left with no choice but to sigh and wave off Reborn's pointed remark with a small, frustrated jerk of her hand. Her lover smoothed her irritation over by leaning in and kissing the side of her mouth.

"There were crumbs on your face," he offered by way of explanation. She smiled at him, seeing past the act. She did not call him on it; she knew how much he valued his pride, and the image he had built up for himself in the mafia game. All was well again, for the moment.

"Well, I think we've lazed around here for long enough." Bianchi set the tray on the night table and pulled herself up from the bed, wrapping one of the sheets around her body. Reborn lingered a moment longer in bed, to etch the image of her framed by the doors and top frame of the closet before getting up himself.

***

Some thirty minutes and a shave later, Reborn was moving through the vast hallways of the main house, suit buttoned up, fedora in place and Leon curled around his hat, peering unblinkingly at whoever he and his master happened to pass during their walk. To the casual observer, it looked as though the Vongola estate was buzzing with the usual amount of activity that a mafia joint possessed on an otherwise slow day, with servants moving about on errands and the occasional group of men in suits moving from point to point, talking about this and that joint or so and so woman. There was, however, the undercurrent of excitement running through every conversation, every action. People had been counting down the days since the Vongola Decimo's marriage date had been announced, and as they ticked off the months, the talk just got louder. There was also the fact that a number of the regulars and members of the household help – the maids, especially – were excited over the return of the Rain Guardian, who had been assigned overseas for the past three years. He had always been the most popular one among the six, mostly because of his clean face and amiable personality. Those were things that Reborn had not had to teach Yamamoto about, and part of the reason why the man had bothered with training him some years back, in a future that nobody else remembered.

Reborn turned into another corridor, leaving the wing that his room was in and entering the side of the main house reserved for the Vongola Boss' Guardians. Although most of the scenery did not change, there was a notable difference in the aura of the place. For one, hardly anyone beyond the oldest or most experienced among the servants could be spotted around the area. For another, no one outside of the inner circle of the current boss was allowed to enter the place without a good reason, or unless they were explicitly invited by one of the Guardians. The decor had also changed, with furnishings selected to cater to the collective tastes of the individuals living in the wing rather than the grand design of the estate in general and portraits of the men and women who had previously served as Guardians replacing the landscapes and still life shots found in the other areas. There was nothing like a constant reminder of the legacy that one bore to keep one in his or her place, and for a family as prestigious as the Vongola, it was important to instill a sense of history in their current members.

Reborn, however, thought very little of it – he ignored the heavy atmosphere as he went along, with the sound of his fine leather shoes striding across well-waxed pinewood floors on the way to his destination. There weren't too many things that could intimidate a man like Reborn, and beyond that, he knew that the particular set of Guardians that the Vongola Family had for the moment needed no one to tell them how to do their job right. The family legacy was in excellent hands.

The main corridor ended in a lobby of sorts, with the walls narrowing themselves into a triangle: the sides of the triangle bore had the entrances to three slightly smaller hallways that lead each lead down to the rooms of each of the Vongola Guardians. Reborn headed for the farthest entranceway on the right side, swinging into the hall leading down to the rooms of the Rain Guardian. He pushed back a door engraved with images of a torrential downpour, stepping out of the semi-lighted hallway and into a sunlit lounge with bare walls and items of furniture covered up by cloth or plastic sheets. The young man that he had come to see was currently crouched at the far end of the lounge, rummaging through suitcases and boxes – he was surrounded by the things they he was pulling out, sitting in the one spot of clear floor circled by paraphernalia of all kinds. Reborn lingered in the doorway, eyeing the scene for a moment before speaking up.

"Odd. I thought that Tsuna would have had them keep things as they were for you."

"Ahahaha, well, I don't think it's _that_ surprising… they probably gave up on me when I didn't come back after the first year. Besides, it's easier for them to keep the rooms like this while I'm gone."

"Then why don't you have somebody help you out?"

"They're probably busy."

Reborn did not comment. The two men were silent for a good, long while, with Yamamoto putting his things in order and Reborn watching Yamamoto, noting down, in the collection of small movements that he made, what had changed and what had not. Yamamoto eventually stopped, and sat back against the palms of one hand, letting out a tired sigh as he fanned himself with his shirt. His belongings were piling up all around him, but from the looks of the boxes and suitcases in front of him, he still had a long way to go.

"So what brings you here, Reborn-san?"

Yamamoto had craned his neck all the way back, and was now peering at Reborn from upside down, sending the man a curious look. His former tutor pushed himself off the wall.

"We're going out for a drink."

"But I just got back! Besides, I need to report to Hayato now that I've arrived, or maybe wait around for Tsuna to come back—"

"Tsuna is out on business, and Gokudera went out in order to avoid seeing you."

A low blow, but that was the sort of thing that Reborn did best, beyond killing people. Taking just that sort of hit, however, was Yamamoto's specialty. "You know," the swordsman idly remarked, "you're the second person I've heard that from today."

"Hibari?"

"Yeah." Yamamoto straightened up and got to his feet. The Rain Guardian stretched his arms and swung them around a little, in order to shake the life back into them. He smiled again at Reborn when he was finished, as if they hadn't just spoken about the reason why the dark-haired young man had left Italy in the first place.

"Well, lead the way, sir."


	11. Ch10, Raison d'etre

**Chapter Ten. Raison d'etre.**

* * *

_Later that evening. Somewhere in the city of Venice._

He had liked Venice before, when the title of the Cloud Guardian still felt more like an unnecessary brand than a part of who he really was: tourism and romantic delusions aside, it was a city that one could get completely lost in. It should not have been possible for a place that could give one something totally new at every corner to exist – cities were, after all, constructs. They weren't meant to live and breathe the way people did. As with most anomalies, he had outright rejected it in the beginning, and then gradually found himself wandering the streets and cruising down the canals at every spare moment, attempting to deconstruct it, attempting to understand. That Venice constantly seemed to elude him only made him appreciate the place more, even with all its bright colors and quaint buildings. It was a city, he remembered thinking after his first misadventure, that did battle with its citizens, its visitors, and with itself.

As time marched on and every step continued bringing him closer to the possibility of ending, however, he began to associate all sorts of other things with the city of canals – he started to dread that one three-day period every year where he had to come to the city and breathe its essence in. It was entirely unjust and completely irrational (Venice had done nothing to him but shelter him from the rest of the world all that time), but it was the meeting place, and when the meetings finally came to an end, the city turned into a place with full of ghosts for him, frozen in time, tracking their story at every turn and corner. It was for that reason that he did not want to keep coming back, if only to keep himself from adding another something for him to remember. Perhaps he was, on some level, trying to teach himself how to hate Venice: he knew that he would eventually have to leave the city and never look back, and it was always easier for one to abandon something that disgusted them. Schooling himself in the finer points of hating something was how he dealt with things best.

Hibari Kyouya had not slept, had not spoken a word throughout the whole trip to Sicily: he had made it a point to ignore any attempt that the others made at conversation, and pretended not to notice whenever the Rain Guardian sent a concerned look in his direction. No one had stopped him from leaving the Vongola Estate barely thirty minutes after they had arrived; he had closed the door on Kusakabe speaking up, acting his part as Hibari's assistant by offering an explanation in his leader's stead. It did not matter. They could think what they wanted to. Following that was the solo ride back to the airport, the extended wait in the terminal, the first-class flight to Venice, then the walking, and the walking, and the walking. He had not been delaying, not really – he liked to think that he was not running away. Running away wasn't something that someone like him did. Now that he was finally at his destination, however, he could not stop himself from wondering where his day had gone, and why it had not prepared him to face up to the fact that he was back in that building, standing, once again, in front of that door.

The key pressed once against the inside of his palm before he opened his hand, letting it dangle on its chain. It should have been simple: take it, open the door, enter, wait. If that did not work, then there was always simply turning around and leaving. Walking away from something was not a retreat: he had always viewed it as a calculated decision on his part, a way to avoid the hassle of the unnecessary and focus on what really mattered. He wondered, then, when leaving had stopped being an option for him. He remembered having a better sense of self-preservation in the past.

"_You don't have to come if you don't want to, but… take this, at least."_

"_Why?"_

"_So that the option is always there."_

He lifted the key close to the doorknob, hesitated, dropped his hand for the umpteenth time that hour. Just outside and beyond the tiny little corridor he stood in, the sounds and smells of the canal echoed back to him – brackish water, creaking boats, seagulls, voices, evening songs, the slow and gentle corrosion of wood and stone into the sea. Venice was breathing and moving all around him, and yet he stood somewhere just left of nowhere, denying all that he had become in the past ten years by saying nothing, doing nothing, and standing perfectly still. Hibari considered the thought, stared down at the key again. He was right on the brink of actually breaking the cycle and leaving when the door opened from the other side. A small gasp, a surprised look, and in the next second, he found himself gathered up in Dino Cavallone's arms.

In retrospect, he should have expected something like that to happen – Dino was almost always the first one to arrive between the two of them, since he had his duties to fulfill in Italy and Hibari had his reasons for not being in the country unless he needed to be. Expecting it, however, did little to ease the strange ache that he felt in his chest as he stood frozen in Dino's embrace, feeling the man's hair tickle his cheek, catching the scent of him (a mix of cigarette smoke, fine cologne and the undertone of Dino's favorite aftershave). There was need in the man's grip, enough need and longing to crush anyone.

"Kyouya, I missed you."

Dino kissed him on the forehead, pulled back just so, with one hand on his arm (to keep him there) and the other curled around the nape of his neck. His face hovered almost close enough for their noses to touch; his smile was painfully bright, and it was the only thing he could see beyond those eyes. Hibari lowered his gaze.

"Come in where it's warmer. Your skin's so cold!"

The hand on his arm had migrated down to grasp his own, tangling those fingers between his fingers. Hibari felt the heat of Dino's palm against his palm, and thought, momentarily, about pulling away and insisting that he could walk on his own. Doing so, however, would have meant that he wanted to be there. Hibari had not been very good with figuring out what he really wanted as of late.

"—so quiet."

Dino's voice drew him back, away from the distant noise of the city and his own thoughts – he was standing in between a closed door and a concerned pair of warm amber eyes. Dino's hand remained on the doorknob; his arm had curved neatly around Hibari's waist when he had moved to shut out the corridor and bring them both inside.

"Is something wrong?" the man asked in a low voice, as he reached out to touch Hibari's cheek. Hibari swatted the hand away. He wanted to speak, to say _something_ (a "shut up" or an "I'm fine" or maybe "don't touch me"), but the words were lodged somewhere between his mouth and his chest, making it difficult to do anything but breathe.

"…Kyouya?"

He kissed Dino to keep him quiet, to keep the man from saying his name and keep himself from having to hear it rolling off that tongue, see it pronounced so carelessly from that particular pair of lips. The man faltered just once, eyeing him with surprise. Hibari ignored it. A moment later, he felt Dino relax; he tried not to flinch when the man's arm locked behind his back, drawing him in.

As they moved to the bed, Hibari told himself that he could make himself believe that he was fine with it. As Dino fumbled with the buttons of his shirt and then slipped his hands across his skin, Hibari told himself that it was better to pretend that it had not been ten years since the letter from the future, since the realization that maybe the possibility of them was not a possibility at all. Then he felt Dino's hand shift down and between his legs and Hibari decided that it was time to stop thinking.

* * *

_At roughly around the same time, in other places in Italy._

Gokudera's fingers drummed across the dashboard of the car, tapping out the notes of the last set of pieces that he had played before leaving the mansion – Igor Stravinsky's "Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka", Dance Russe, often foreshortened to Petrouchka. His sixteen-minute morning exercise since childhood. The silver-haired man looped the songs over and over in his head as his hands tested out different variations on his finger movement upon an imaginary keyboard and his inner ear remained cocked towards all of the slight and personal changes he could make to the rhythm or the notation. His eyes, however, remained fixed on the entrance of the bar across the street, where a number of rough-looking figures in suits had gathered together. He was close to completing his eleventh replay of all three movements, and not much had happened beyond the goons up front scaring the general public away from the joint and Gokudera getting a few odd looks from the passersby on his end of the street. Gokudera failed to notice them on two counts: he was busy watching the bar, and he liked the songs that he was tinkering with far too much.

In actuality, he was not supposed to be spending his day cramped up in a stolen car, handling a mission that was usually left to the rookies in the family and barely interesting enough to merit the attention of the Storm Guardian himself. There was also the fact that there were important things to attend to back at the mansion. For one, the Tenth was coming home from negotiations with the Giglionero, and he was probably going to need a listening ear and a guiding hand with regard to whatever his future plans were going to be from that point. For another, several key members of the family were coming home, Rain Guardian included.

Gokudera preferred not to think about that one.

Somewhere between the second and last minutes of the first movement, his targets of the evening finally emerged from the bar. Gokudera watched them for exactly thirty-four seconds, just long enough to finish the movement. Then he stepped out, cocking his gun as the second song began.

***

Tsuna stepped into the car with an audible sigh of relief. Chrome shut the door behind her boss, sending him a sympathetic look before turning back to exchange a few last words with Irie at the doorway to the Giglionero Estate. Tsuna watched them from behind the refuge of the tinted passenger window, noting the curve of Chrome's back and Irie's features in the semi-darkness of the garden lamps. Negotiations had late, late enough for Luce to ask Tsuna if he wished to stay the night at the estate. At another time, Tsuna might have said yes.

Chrome had opened the car door and slipped into the seat beside him, drawing Tsuna's attentions away from his thoughts. "Tired, boss?" she asked, eyeing him with concern. "Perhaps we should stay overnight after all."

"No, no, I'll be all right. Unless the rest of you want to?" Tsuna quickly added, suddenly realizing that his companions might not have been in as much of a hurry to go home as he was. Chrome only smiled again and shook her head.

"We'll follow along with what you want, boss. Besides," the Mist Guardian added with a wry look towards the sleeping pair at the front of the car, "I think Lambo and I-pin have already learned how to sleep anywhere and in any situation just fine."

"There is merit in Chrome-dono's statement, Sawada-dono, " Basil interjected, turning to Tsuna with a reassuring smile of his own. "As the lady Kyoko hath but recently touched down on Italy's fair soil, would it not be the most natural of inclinations for Sawada-dono to immediately attend to the matter of her arrival and close the separation wrought by intervening time and distance?"

Tsuna chuckled.

"You caught me red-handed there."

"Your friends are the ones who know you best," Chrome returned, with grave solemnity. The Mist Guardian then turned to the driver, delivering instructions to him in low and easy Italian. The car set off a moment later, turning into the first among the many winding roads cutting across the Giglionero Family's vineyards.

***

"The least you could do is drink what's been given to you."

"…Eh?"

Yamamoto blinked as a bottle suddenly filled his vision – he looked up, tracing the hand holding it all the way over to Reborn's quirked eyebrows and amused expression. The swordsman chuckled, offering his former tutor an apology. He reached for the bottle, poured himself a little wine.

"I really shouldn't take too much, though."

"A little alcohol never hurt anyone," Reborn scoffed, "and you're not due in the dugout until next year."

Yamamoto made a noncommittal sound as he lifted the wineglass to his lips; his tutor slipped back into the stool beside his own, toting his own glass around. The bar was buzzing with the low, downplayed energy of a place full of no one beyond the regulars and one or two new faces – it was a sound made of intimate conversation and idle piano song, with an undercurrent of alcohol. Yamamoto and Reborn were familiar with the place: it had been their rendezvous point for any assignment Yamamoto had to attend to in Italy for the family, and the venue where he and his former tutor came together whenever Yamamoto needed a listening ear or Reborn felt like picking on someone other than Tsuna. They usually did not say much: their exchanges were often nothing but drinking to their own thoughts, punctuated, on occasion, by casual banter on nothing much at all. That evening, however, was an exception.

As much as he cared about Tsuna and trusted his boss, Yamamoto knew that if he truly wanted to hear about the other end of matters, he had to turn to Reborn. The man had been a mentor figure of a sort to all of the Guardians in their younger years, and could always be relied upon to deliver news and his frank take on the situation. Tsuna genuinely cared for his subordinates, most especially his Guardians: it was also part of his role as the boss to balance individual strengths, weaknesses and differences among the members of his inner circle. As such, there were things he withheld or curbed, according to whoever happened to be asking him the questions. Reborn was a close observer, capable of viewing the whole situation without getting caught up in it – he also took it upon himself to speak his mind, without hesitation. That was something that Yamamoto appreciated all the more, now that he was trying to ease his way back into the scene and take his role up as Rain Guardian of the Vongola Family once again. Nevertheless, there were still some topics that even someone like Yamamoto had the propensity to avoid like the plague, even if he did not really look like he was avoiding it.

"You know," said Reborn sometime later, after he had traded his wine for a glass of Scotch and Yamamoto had finally finished his second drink that evening, "the chase can end two ways: when the prey has been caught, or the predator gives up chasing."

Yamamoto stared. Reborn serenely tipped his drink back.

"Ahahaha… what?"

"It's all up to the hunter in the hunt," Reborn went on, as if he hadn't heard his former student speak. "He can't rely on anything but his instincts once he's out there, and how much energy he's willing to pour into watching and waiting. His prey is never going to come close enough to make things easy. He's going to have get up close and personal, learn to watch his target's moves, moods, behavior… everything. If his prey escapes, it's only because he let it happen."

"Um. I don't really get it. Why are we talking about this?"

Reborn lightly smacked Yamamoto upside head, and then returned to his drink as though nothing had happened. "You're the natural-born hit man in the lot, Yamamoto-kun," he said, as his former student rubbed the back of his head. "This shouldn't be a problem for you."

Yamamoto only laughed again. Reborn had not clarified what he had meant by "this" out loud, but the young swordsman knew only too well. He was, in fact, a little glad that his tutor had not overtly mentioned the problem, opting to go for a roundabout analogy and just the right amount of physical abuse to save face.

"You're being really nice tonight, Reborn-san."

"Want me to hit you for that?"

"I'll pass, thanks." Yamamoto looked down at his glass, staring at the dregs of the wine he had drank nearly an hour back. He suddenly wanted more. That couldn't have been a good thing.

"Maybe I've decided to let it happen."

***

Between his dynamite, his rings and Uri, it should not have taken more than two minutes to raze through the bar and eliminate all of his targets. His need to run through the latest variations that he had made to his morning exercise, however, extended the fight across all three pieces of Petrouchka, ending at the exact moment that the last note struck in his head. Gokudera felt that familiar itch in his fingers a moment afterward, when he was back in a room full of bodies and the fierce warmth of Uri's flames. There was a piano in the bar, tucked away on a little stage in the farthest corner of the place. Gokudera allowed himself one longing look in its direction before he headed for the door, whistling for Uri to follow him. His boss was coming home. Now wasn't the best time to indulge himself, not when there was the real possibility of the Tenth arriving before him and wondering where he was.

Petrouchka had bled itself out of his system during the car ride, replaced by a medley that he had created out Chopin's slower etudes last Christmas. He took note of some of the smaller imperfections in the piece as he drove, filing them away until the next chance that he had to be at the piano in order to fix them properly. The mansion was well-lit and bustling with activity at his arrival – unsurprising, given the fact that most of the real work for a family like the Vongola started at night and ended sometime before sunrise.

"Welcome back, Gokudera-san."

"Where is the Tenth?"

"He has not returned yet, sir."

"Get back to work."

Gokudera barely acknowledged the man's stammered response as he stalked past, trailed by the massive cat that was often the only companion he ever allowed himself to have in battle. He made his way to his office, barely hearing Uri's soft but powerful footfalls just a few steps behind his own. He was not thinking about notes and variations any longer. His boss was returning soon.

***

The ride back had been, for the most part, completely uneventful – Lambo and I-pin had slept throughout the trip, and none of the others had been inclined to talk much given how long and intense the discussion with the Giglionero had been. Tsuna had, of course, taken this opportunity out to get some shut eye; he felt that he could afford to relax for the moment, and perhaps he needed to since he would be seeing Kyoko very soon. His fiancé was sure to worry if he came home looking anxious or tired.

Although he had planned to wrap up a few matters that he had been forced to leave hanging earlier that day, Chrome and Basil quickly stepped in to stop him. The pair alternately scolded him for even considering the thought of doing more work at such a late hour and insisting that he head off straight away to meet Kyoko and rest. After that, they shuttled him off to his wing of the estate, promising him that they would set the matters straight in his stead, and report to him first thing in the morning. Although Tsuna was admittedly relieved that his friends were willing to take a load off his shoulders if only for an evening, the young man could not help but feel a little guilty for tossing what was technically his responsibility and his alone at other people. He knew, however, what Reborn would do if the man happened to catch him working himself to death in the small hours of the morning, and the last thing Tsuna wanted was to get chewed out (or beaten up) by his old mentor.

Tsuna found himself taking two steps at a time as he made his way towards his destination; his rooms were located at the back of the estate, in one of the higher floors of the house. He felt oddly energized at the moment, and he wondered if it was because of the nap he had taken in the car, or because of another reason entirely. His answer to that particular question came in the form of him pushing the doors open to his rooms, and spotting Kyoko sitting on the floor of the sitting room, going through a long list in her hands. Their wedding invitations were spread out before her, each bearing a familiar name. She eventually looked up and noticed him standing in the doorway.

"Welcome home. I was just going over the invites… want to take a look?"

Kyoko was there and smiling at him, as though it had not been months since they had seen each other in person, as though the last time they had been together like that had been just the other day. Tsuna returned the gesture in kind. Trust in Kyoko's mere presence to make everything in the world seem good and right again.

"…Sure thing."

Tsuna stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him.

***

Yamamoto and Reborn left the bar at close to two in the morning – the Arcobaleno sent his former student ahead to the mansion, claiming that he had "special errands" to attend to before heading home. Yamamoto did not bother asking; Reborn's business was his own. He was also a little glad that he did not have to go home with the man, considering what he planned to do as soon as he was back at the estate.

Meeting with Gokudera Hayato meant being prepared for the possibility of entering his office and finding him fast asleep on his couch or at his desk. As the bearer of the Ring of Storm, Gokudera was the brains behind the Vongola Family, and if that position alone wasn't already enough to keep him busy, his habit of stretching himself out thin in the name of his leader did the trick. He was one of those strange people who actually looked for work, and did not know what to do with himself when he had more than fifteen minutes of free time. Back when he was still trucking around for the family (back when things had not been nearly as awkward between them as they were now), Yamamoto had grown accustomed to coming around and finding Gokudera sprawled out on his couch with one arm over his eyes and another one stretched across a very tall stack of papers on the floor, looking as though he had fallen asleep in the middle of reading a report. The radio would be on at full volume, occasionally spitting static out and blaring important messages that Gokudera was too far gone to hear.

That was how Yamamoto found Gokudera at the moment, as he stood in the doorway of the other man's office for the first time in three years. It was not the most dramatic reunion, and certainly not the one he had been expecting, but the swordsman felt that he might not have been prepared to deal with any other sort of confrontation. He kind of did not want to think about what it would have been like to come across Gokudera awake, especially after he had come fresh from a knocking back a few drinks and talking about the strangest – the hardest – things. Yamamoto pushed those thoughts aside and slipped out of the office in search of a maid. He came back around five minutes later, with two pillows and a fluffy blanket.

In moments like that one, with Gokudera fast asleep and him gently tucking a blanket around his shoulders/slipping a pillow underneath his head/brushing the hair away from his face/watching the peaceful rise and fall of his fellow Guardian's chest, Yamamoto was reminded, and quite abruptly, of what might have made him fall in love with the other man in the first place. He could not, in all his years, recall meeting anyone as strong, as fragile, as predictable, as simple, as complex, as unbreakable, as vulnerable and as so-totally-fucked-up as Gokudera Hayato. He could not understand the man, not in the way that he understood the rest of the world, and as such, he had felt himself drawn to the many contradictions that made up who Gokudera was. Perhaps, though, it could have been far simpler than that, given the fact that he had been in love with Gokudera since they were fourteen and Yamamoto knew for a fact that his younger self could not have possibly viewed that silver-haired boy back then in the same way that he viewed his fellow Guardian now. That baseball freak could not have known even the beginning of what he knew at present. Maybe it was simpler than that, as simple as the memory of every moment when he had stolen a glance at Gokudera and found him looking at something else. _Someone _else.

Uri rumbled in his sleep, piercing through Yamamoto's thoughts – the man blinked, and immediately pulled back, stopping himself from reaching out to touch those lips, that cheek. He settled for a feather-light kiss right between Gokudera's eyebrows before he stood up and left the room. It was not enough (it was never enough), but it was better than nothing.


	12. Ch11, Somewhere just left of nowhere

**Chapter Eleven. Somewhere just left of nowhere.**

* * *

_It had been exactly six months, three weeks, five days and sixteen hours since he had last seen Hibari Kyouya. Since the moment he got off the plane Dino had wandered through Namimori, picking a new direction at his fancy, turning at corners on a whim. Hibari was the type of person who could not be found unless he wanted to be found. Dino, however, knew the secret towards finding the boy. That the way one ought to look for Hibari Kyouya was by not looking for him at all._

_The day was nearly over by the time Dino emerged from a long, narrow alleyway in an older section of Namimori: he stepped out into the pinks, oranges and blood red hues of a dying sun, and to the sight of Hibari snapping a man's neck with a neat jerk of his arm. Dino blinked at the sound, let out a low whistle. He knew that move: it was through his advice that Hibari had managed to perfect it just a few years back, before Hibari was capable of killing a man with anything from the tonfa he favored to a ballpoint pen, before Hibari took to wearing a peculiar, heavy-looking ring on his right hand._

_Dino had given his position away with his noise, and Hibari was now aware of his presence: those eyes were on him at that moment, startling gray, fever-bright from the thrill of destroying another life. There was a question in that gaze, something Dino was hoping he would not have to answer to __immediately. So he chose to smile. He took the first few steps forward slowly, distinctly aware of the fact that Hibari's sense of__ personal space was ridiculously particular. Dino did that not because he was scared, but had not flown halfway across an ocean to kick __the crap out of someone who mattered to him. That was not the most ideal way to show that one cares._

"_Hey."_

_It was not the best thing to say to your lover after more than half a year of radio silence, but it was the way that Dino decided to do things._

"_Back to waste more time in Japan, are you?"_

"_I wanted to see you."_

_Hibari scoffed. He was a young man more than he was a boy, a little taller and a little thinner__ and a hell lot more dangerous than he ever was before. Dino remembered how he used to run loose, biting at the hands that linger too close, or the necks of those who stayed for too long. Now there was a method to his violence, a rhyme and rhythm to the way he rejected everything around him, any threat to his peace of mind._

_Dino was drawn from those thoughts by the sound of footsteps, and he looked up in time to see Hibari pass him by, leaving the bodies behind: h__e caught a whiff of the young man's scent, a intermingling of sweat, smoke and sandalwood. Dino turned and followed him._

_***  
_

The rain started sometime during the small hours of the morning and refused to stop, blocking out sunlight, distorting the hours. Venice was drowning in the hues of foul weather, reducing everything to a black mess accented by the darker shades of blue, white and gray. Up where he was, however, up in the fourth floor of a building occupied by no one but them, Dino could hardly bring himself to care.

They had not left the bed since the evening of their arrival, when Dino had come two hours too early and Hibari had arrived two hours too late. From that point on, however, they had tracked the passage of time in coming together and breaking apart, in wearing out the day in a mess of limbs and falling asleep still tangled up in each other. They were awake at that moment, fucking for the seventh time. Dino had Hibari spread across sheets that smelled like both of them, that bore their stains and the warmth of the combined heat of their bodies; he his former student, tracing the ridges of that spine, feeling for every movement, waiting for the tell-tale tremor of muscles just beneath painted skin. Hibari, however, remained pressed between the bed and the solid weight of Dino's body, head bowed breath shaking, silent. Resisting him again, just as he always had since the day they met, but Dino had come to learn that it was a knee-jerk reaction, and something that he could easily use to his advantage.

Hibari had grown over the past ten years. It strange thought, a revelation that was almost fatherly and quite nearly inappropriate, but Dino had been watching Hibari Kyouya since he was fifteen. It was inevitable, then, for him to find himself comparing the boy he used to train against with the mafioso that he was screwing now, measuring out familiarity in newness, searching for the point where the past intersected with what he had between his hands at that moment. He noted, then, what had failed to change: the boniness of those shoulder blades, the jagged edges of scars on a body trained to do nothing but kill, the frailty he could still hold easily between his two hands.

"Relax, Kyouya. You'll hurt yourself like this."

A choked sound, the near-invisible shake of a black-haired head; another wordless refusal. The blond man shifted himself closer, cupping the heel of his palm underneath Hibari's chin, parting those lips on his fingers. He held the Vongole with the other, working to untangle the heat and discomfort bundled up between those legs; he did not slow down, even as the latter shuddered and tried to jerk away from him. It was easy for him to keep at it until the fighting stopped, until he had Hibari whimpering around the fingers he had slipped into his former student's mouth, until he Hibari's own body betray him, in the arch of his back and the way those hips bucked all on their own. Dino pulled his fingers out of Hibari's mouth and buried them into the latter's ass instead; he smiled when Hibari did nothing but moan and push against him.

Ten years down the line and Dino Cavallone still knew exactly how to break him. He entered Hibari later, pressing in until there was no distance between them, feeling and seeing more than hearing every sound that the younger man made. He bent down just once, to lick off the sweat on the nape of Hibari's neck: the salt of it lingered on his lips as he started moving, setting their pace.

***

_They did not speak the whole way to Hibari's apartment. Dino took his this time out to watch the fighter in front of him, gauging the full extent of the injuries that he was sure Hibari had even though his former student was damned good at not showing a thing. Dino, however, did not mind as much as he ought to; it had become something of a game for him. The prize was a little more control over Hibari, whom he views as something much like a force of nature on to himself._

_Dino let their exchange-that-wasn't-an-exchange go on, even as they were entering the apartment, even over the sparse dinner for two, even after he found himself seated on his former student's bed, smoking, listening to the__ sound of the running water in the bathroom. Given his assessment of Hibari's latest shopping list of injury, Dino was almost certain that __the younger man was doing little else beyond sponging himself off but making it sound like he was taking a shower. Briefly, the man wondered when it started to occur to Hibari to be sneakier about things.__ He thought about asking, but Hibari stepped out of the bathroom at that moment, and all of a sudden the only thing that registered to him was wet hair, bare chest, supple limbs, half-buttoned pants and ill-disguised irritation. Dino decided that he could bring it up later._

_The bathroom door was barely closed by the time Dino had Hibari against the wall, with his hands on those too-thin wrists and his mouth on that mouth, sucking on a cut on that bottom lip. He knew Hibari was indulging him, because when his knee slid in between those legs the young Vongole tugged one arm free and struck him across the face. Dino took the blow with a small laugh, a rueful shake of his head. Hibari watched him with hooded eyelids and panting lips, muscles coiled up for another strike. Two heartbeats, and they were back __to their old routine, all breath and teeth, push (shove) and pull (jerk), struggling for control through violence and an almost total lack of distance. Angry foreplay was, as__ always, their way of saying "it's so lovely to see you again". This was not what Dino was thinking about, however, at the moment when he finally managed to throw Hibari unto the bed (hard enough to make him wince), swat the young man's hands away (before they could scratch his eyes out) and pin him to the bed._

_Those eyes were glaring at him again, darkened with something that might have been anger, might have been desire, might have been confusion. Dino matched that __stare without flinching. It was still ridiculously easy for him to hold both of those wrists in one hand, he realized, as he pressed his other hand down__ on Hibari's ribs, the side Dino had noticed the younger man favoring when they were climbing the stairs to his room. Hibari's gasp was all Dino needed to hear for the man to know that he was right on the mark – he bent forward, smothering the rest of that sound under the force of his kiss__. He did not, however, remove his hand from its place over those bruised ribs, at least not until Hibari stopped struggling. The young Cloud Guardian had taken far worse than that in the past, but Dino knew that things changed once they were off the battlefield and there was no one else but the two of them in a room with just one bed in it._

"_Now," Dino murmured, once his former student had stopped shaking, once he had gone perfectly still, "will you quit being stubborn and let me fuss over you in peace?"_

_Hibari's eyes flinched away from his; Dino had won. The blond man released his companion and sat up. His fingers brushed across Hibari's forehead as he slid off the bed; it was a gesture offering both comfort and an apology. Hibari slapped it away, and Dino knew, from that moment, that it was going to be a long night for the both of them._

_***  
_

Dino was up first after their eighth fuck, sitting with his back against the headboard and a cigarette between his fingers, listening, for the first time, to the rain; Hibari was the slender form just an arm's length away from him, naked but for the bed sheets tangled carelessly about his waist. He wondered if the younger man was awake; it would have been easy to check, to reach over and speak to him or maybe kiss him. When Dino _did _move, however, it wasn't towards Hibari but away from him, to trade the bed for a hot shower. He stepped out some thirty minutes later, to an empty bed and Hibari up and wearing his clothes. The young man was leaning against the doorframe of the porch, hovering just between dry comfort and wet weather, smoking his cigarettes, watching the sky. Dino went off to the kitchen and brewing some coffee. If he wanted to get close to Hibari, he had to come in armed.

"What are you thinking about when you do that?"

There was nothing but a quick glance in his direction, and it disappeared beneath a fringe of hair, and slender hands reaching out to take the mug that he offered. He remembered being a little amazed the first time that had happened: it was one thing to be able to stand that close to Hibari and not get bitten, but it was quite another to see him behave like a civilized human being. He was alarmed on the second and third counts (any change in routine with Hibari was always a bad thing), but by the fourth count and beyond, Dino found himself trying to tune it out.

"Come inside. I'll make lunch."

Hibari only turned away and went back to watching the rain. There would have been some sort of response, just a few years back: a measuring look, a twist of his lips, a clipped comment, or maybe – just maybe – a crooked smile. He had fallen in love with that frankness before, made a sport out of comparing it to what Hibari was like in bed. Something was making the younger man pull away from him again, to stare off somewhere like he was seeing ghosts or something worse in the skies. Something had changed and it had happened with painful slowness over the ten years since Hibari had come back from the future with Sawada Tsunayoshi and the other Guardians, marked by growing stretches of silence and more distance in those pale gray eyes.

Dino set his mug down on the nearest surface and reached out, taking Hibari's hand up in his own and lifting it to his lips, to measure that slender arm, to kiss each finger – he reeled the other in, when it became clear that it was not going to be enough to divert his attentions. He kissed Hibari until his former student could do nothing _but _respond to him, and used that opportunity to draw him back inside, away from the porch and whatever he saw in the rain.

Wearing him down and fucking him up was the best way to bind Hibari Kyouya in place, to pin his gaze down on the here and the now rather than that distant something that Dino does not know anything about and probably never will know about because Hibari had never been into the habit of talking about things. The methods of choice used to revolve around physical restraint and mind games; those had been replaced with pleasant distractions and emotional blackmail.

Hibari was finally looking at him, watching him kiss the pulse on his wrist with hooded eyes and parted lips; Dino responded in kind by taking his mouth with his own. The blond man knew that what he was doing was totally selfish and could not in any way be fair or right, but it was easier – infinitely easier – than trying to figure out what was happening to them. Perhaps Hibari would not break if Dino simply pretended that he did not see a thing.

***

"_Give me a sec. I'll do this quickly."_

_They were seated across of each other a moment later: Dino had pulled up a chair to the side of the bed, where Hibari had now settled himself. The blond man was armed with a first aid kit; Hibari was facing him with nothing but his silence. There were six whole months of a total lack of communication hanging in the air between them. Dino attempted to break it with murmured instructions. Hibari attempted to ignore it completely._

"_Lift your arm."_

_Hibari was submitting himself to Dino's ministrations less out of choice and more out of convenience, and that was a fact that Dino was fully aware of. He used to call his ex-student on moments like that one, when they were both younger and less willing to lose control. They had grown together, though, in fire and in blood and in fucking and in violence. Things were different._

"_Turn here."_

_A hand landed on his arm, just before he could pull away. One breath, and Dino found himself staring back into those gray eyes. Too young, he found himself thinking. Too young, and he still tried to measure all that a person was in a single look._

"_Leave it."_

"_But—"_

_Hibari cut Dino off by pulling him in, with a hand behind the man's neck. "Leave it," he repeated in a low voice, speaking across Dino's skin. A neutral tone; the need was in the strength of his grip, and the light in those eyes. Dino smiled._

"…_As you wish."_

_There was no resistance in their next kiss, and in a graceless shift of limbs they were back on the bed. The bandages and the bottle of salve quietly dropped to the floor._

_***  
_

"I am leaving ahead of you."

It was the first time that Hibari had said more than his name or some sort of refusal since they had come together. Dino blinked, lifting his gaze up to meet with Hibari's. Hibari acknowledged him once, but only briefly.

"I see. Care to tell me why?"

Flinching away from his stare; another recent and undesirable habit. It took an effort not to point out the obvious, but to fill the silence with excuses instead.

"Vongola business, then? With Tsuna getting married and all."

"Yes."

"Ah."

Dino set his fork down, lifted his wineglass to his lips. On the other end of the table, Hibari cut away thin, precise slices of meat from the lamb chops that he was eating, keeping the knife up right against the bone.

"Maybe we can leave together. I can always head back home early."

It was Hibari who looked up that time: there was a quiet look to him, a silent reminder of the very reason why they opted to meet in Venice for just three days in the whole year. Dino ignored it. Talk was talk, especially in their circles; people were people, since they always thought that they knew exactly what other people were about when they really didn't. It would pass with time, with the next big secret cranked out by the chatterboxes and the rumor mills.

(It _had_ to pass, because it if didn't, Dino had a feeling that he was going to go insane.)

"There's no point in staying if you're not going to be here, Kyouya."

Hibari set his utensils down and reached for the table napkin at his right. "You are being hopelessly romantic, Cavallone," he said, as he dabbed at his mouth. The young man stood up as soon as he was finished, disappearing into their bedroom. Dino finished his food, lit up another cigarette.

Hibari was not talking back the way he used to. He liked to pretend, but Dino knew.

Dino's cellular phone rang at that moment, and the man picked up without so much as a glance at the number or name displayed on the screen.

"Good thing you called, Romario. Tell the Board that I'll be home a little earlier than usual."

"**Understood, sir. A ticket for two, then?"**

Dino lifted the cigarette to his lips, lifted his eyes to follow Hibari as he moved around in the bedroom. He could only wonder why the young man's back seemed so small to him, so distant.

"…No. I think I'll be flying home alone this time."

***

"_I need to go back to Italy tomorrow. Why don't you come with me?"_

_They were up on the rooftop of Hibari's apartment the next afternoon, alone with the wind and the clouds and the fresh laundry of the residents below their feet. Dino stayed near the wall, smoking through a wish stick. Hibari was wandering across the wide expanse of concrete floor, bordered off by chain-link fences, crisscrossed by the shivering shadows of clotheslines in the wind._

"_I am not interested in traveling with you."_

"_It's not just for me, you know… it's for Tsuna. The families are making a decision regarding his proposal, and it would be good if he had a Guardian with him once the word's out."_

"_Sawada is not my boss."_

"_You're wearing his ring."_

"_It is _my_ ring. I do with it as I please."_

_That was, Dino had begun to realize, how he liked Hibari best: back-dropped against blueness and cityscape, somewhere between earth and sky. Their story was one of him always looking up at the boy somewhere above him and seeking for the best means to take him down, to pluck him straight out from wherever he was and bury him between his arms._

"_Come with me, Kyouya."_

"_You are seven years too early to be making demands of me."_

_Time again, another thing that Hibari Kyouya seemed to be obsessed with – it was almost as if he was living in a time that had not actually happened and was constantly chasing after, in the wild hope of bringing it down in the same, brutal fashion that he took down anything that stood in his way. In that sense, even if he insisted on his own independence, he had a lot more in common with Sawada Tsuyanoshi and the other Vongole then he liked to think. They were all racing against the clock, as if they were out to disprove that the future was as solid and as set and as unchangeable as the past._

"_So in seven years," said Dino, "will you finally listen to me?"_

_Hibari did not answer, and from where he was standing, back against the light, it was impossible to see the look on his face._

_***  
_

Later in the evening, as he watched Hibari roll his suitcase out the door, Dino wanted to ask his former student, as he often did those days, why he always walked like he was going to fly away. He never asked the younger man straight; he tried to stutter them out instead, in a wan smile, a tightened grip and one too many kisses along the fine lines of Hibari's face.

Since Dino never spoke the words, Hibari never replied.


	13. Ch12, Lovely 2 C U

**Chapter Twelve. Lovely 2 C U.**

* * *

_Six years ago, after promises have been made._

He spent the whole night curled up in bed, trying to take up as little space as possible, as if doing that might clear up the noise in his head. Time crawled along for him at an agonizing pace until sometime after midnight, where between 12:53:35 and 12:53:36 he blinked and discovered that the light of the rising sun was creeping into his room. Gokudera Hayato lurched out of bed, numb from sleeping too little and angry at himself for succumbing to his exhaustion. He was the Storm Guardian of the Vongola Family, the Tenth's Right Hand Man. He was supposed to be made of tougher stuff.

After a cold shower, stale cigarettes and a half-burnt breakfast, Gokudera took a deep, self-steadying breath and stepped out of his apartment – he planned on taking his time on the way to the Sawada Residence, in order to make sure that he could face the Tenth with a bright smile and his trademark, overabounding enthusiasm. He had not factored in the possibility of nearly tripping over the huddled form of Yamamoto Takeshi: the other boy had apparently settled himself on the floor just outside of his door, camping out with spam musubi and a thermos full of barley tea.

"Wow! You're out earlier than usual."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

The question he really wanted to ask was why Yamamoto was back to their usual routine, as if they had not talked on the rooftop the other night, as if Gokudera had not just attempted to shut his fellow Guardian out of his life for the umpteenth time. Gokudera, however, had never been very good with dealing with Yamamoto's resilience (persistence), and it was often easier to give the other boy a piece of his mind and then back away as quickly as he could. Besides, Yamamoto's smooth honesty and stupid smile made him hurt in a way that he would not rather think about, and the best way to handle that was to lash out at the nearest target: the very source of his problems.

"I'm here every day," said Yamamoto, drawing Gokudera out of his thoughts. The silver-haired boy scoffed and brushed past Yamamoto, heading for the stairs and down to the streets. He didn't bother speeding up, at least not too much; Yamamoto always managed to catch up to him anyway, right before the first junction in the road.

"Ahaha, you look kinda dead. Did you sleep at all?"

"Shut up, idiot."

"Hey, hey, can you help me with our assignment for second period? I couldn't figure this one problem out, and…"

Yamamoto talked on and Gokudera pretended that he couldn't hear a thing, and it felt almost normal somehow. Almost right, except acknowledging that and falling right back into their routine was just going to make the next time harder, when there was no Tenth in sight and nothing but Yamamoto again, offering him something that he couldn't afford to take.

***

_Present day. The Storm Guardian's office._

He was jolted awake by the sound of one out of his four cellular phones ringing and Uri stalking about, twitchy and hungry for his usual morning dose of Dying Will flame. Gokudera wasted one precious moment staring at the ceiling before his brain finally kicked into gear, and the Storm Guardian dove off the couch in order to snag his phone from the table. Samsung custom, gun metallic gray finish – the unit he used for the men under his command.

"Yeah. …Yeah, all right. Update me now."

He circled about as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line, rounding over to the corner in order to feed Uri (before the cat pounced on him and helped himself to breakfast) and trying to figure out exactly when he had ended up drifting off the other night. He could not, for the life of him, remember much beyond sitting on the couch with more reports, blinking, and suddenly finding himself awakened from a rest that he had not meant to take. Nevertheless, because he woke up wrapped up rather tightly in a blanket he was pretty much forced to conclude that he must have been lucid enough to have the good sense to cover himself up, because he couldn't think of anyone who would bother to check up on him and do it for him.

(Gokudera, of course, was very good at that thing they call denial.)

"I'll handle it myself. Have a team on standby at the site."

No goodbyes, of course, because the Storm Guardian of the Vongola did not do proper farewells with his subordinates; just a flick of his wrist to snap the unit shut and a whistle to Uri, summoning his box weapon to him. One quick detour to the wardrobe in the other room to fetch a better suit, and he was off and out the door, brisk walking to the car waiting for him at the gates of the estate.

No time to think, no time for dreams. The Family had its business, and Gokudera Hayato intended to be on top of it all, always and ever, no matter what.

* * *

_Six years ago, after promises have been made._

He spent a long time on that rooftop afterward, long enough to watch the sun fall out of the sky and evening take hold on Namimori City. He could have moved – it would have been a smart idea to and all, because loitering on campus past the end of classes was against the rules and Hibari Kyouya valued school rules more than he valued human life. Yamamoto rather _liked_ the life he was living, and often did everything he could in order to keep it.

Odd, then, how hours passed before he managed to muster up enough strength to push himself up off the floor and leave. The sushi boxes, he dumped those in the trash bin on his way out – some stray was going to get real lucky with them. Gokudera had not eaten much, and Yamamoto himself had lost his appetite somewhere between waiting for Gokudera to come around and later watching Gokudera leave him behind.

His phone rang while he was crossing the bridge connecting the city proper with the district where he has lived in since he was born – he had taken the long way home, the really long way, rather than zip over to the interchange and snag a ride all the way to the station two streets behind his house.

"Hello…? Oh! Hey there, Tsuna!"

Yamamoto cradled the phone between his ear and the crook of his shoulder in order to free up his hands as he walked. He listened to his friend's stammered apologies, waved him off with another easy laugh and warm assurances as he fixed his backpack.

"Yeah, yeah, don't sweat it. Sure, you can copy my notes. I think I got some good ones."

It was that quiet period in the district between the last batch of folks leaving and the next one coming in, and there were no cars or bikes on the streets, no one else out and about on the sidewalks except him. Yamamoto stopped over at the street corner two blocks away from his house, to check on the stray dog that lived in a box by the bus station. He squatted down and mouthed his greeting to the little guy, scratching it under the chin and later between the ears.

"…What I'm doing now? Ahaha, nothing much. Just in my room, y'know. Kicking around."

He did not even realize that he had lied until after the fact, and by then, there wasn't anything he could do about it.

They talked a little more, right up until Tsuna finally remembered the time and flailed through his goodbye: Kyoko was due to call his house very soon.

Yamamoto took that as a sign to go home.

The rest of the hours passed Yamamoto by in a vague blur of evening rituals, failing to study and lying on his side in bed, staring at the wall. He dragged himself out of the slump by three in the morning, prepared for school and snuck into the restaurant kitchen, to prepare a meal for two. He deposited himself, properly dressed and armed with a packed lunch box, at the foot of Gokudera's apartment an hour and a half after that. Gokudera himself stepped out a little earlier than usual, at a quarter to six.

"Wow! You're out earlier than usual."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm here every day."

After a shake up, it was all about re-establishing the routine, about rolling with the regular punches and going through all the motions that were expected of a baseball idiot like himself. Yamamoto, of course, applied himself to the task without really thinking about it. Thinking was a dangerous business, and besides: Gokudera needed the normalcy. That was all there was to it.

Later, when they were three blocks away from Tsuna's house, it occurred to Yamamoto that it would have been easy – so painfully easy – to reach out, take Gokudera's hand and never let go. He knew, though, that the inches between their palms was a distance he could not cross.

***

_Present day. The Vongola Mansion, Sicily._

Yamamoto was not used to waking up in a bed big enough for five people, in a room with a bathroom that was thrice the size of his apartment, in a mansion full of people whose only purpose in life was to keep their heads low when the firefights started and cater to his every need when there weren't any bullets to dodge or people to kill. He had not lived poorly, but he certainly hadn't had things easy, at least until he had signed on with the Tigers. That did not, however, stop him from gawking a little at all the luxuries that having a generally invisible battalion of servants at one's beck and call provided one with. Frankly, he wondered now just as much as before how Tsuna and the rest of his friends managed to make it through the day without going a little crazy. They had been small-town boys way before they had ever joined the mafia game, and small-town boys were used to doing things on their own.

There was also the Vongola Mansion itself to deal with – if the size of the place wasn't enough of a problem, there was also the fact that each succeeding generation had the propensity to renovate areas and add expansions to the estate, turning wings upside down or switching areas around according to their needs (or whims). Tsuna was not nearly as radical as some of his predecessors had been when it came to fussing over the estate, but that did not make him a proper exception to the rule. If for anything, Yamamoto could be grateful for the fact that certain parts had never been moved since the time of the First, and those were often the places that he had to go to. The most permanent fixture was, of course, the wing reserved for the Vongola Boss himself.

Yamamoto was making his way towards that wing at the moment, ambling along, smiling at everything and nothing in particular, occasionally stopping to blink confusedly at unfamiliar junctions ("unfamiliar" meaning that it either looked like the last one he had just passed through or had slightly different décor from the one a few turns back from his current position) or stop one of the help to ask for directions. He had spent the last hour and a half en-route to his destination, but he was not bothered by that too much: it was a marked improvement from how long it _used _to take him to get anywhere.

Interestingly enough, he _heard_ the office before he actually _saw_ it. Two familiar voices started echoing back to Yamamoto during the last few turns, and the sound of the conversation they were carrying out was deafening by the time the swordsman found himself standing in front of the door, which banged open before he could even reach for the doorknob.

"—AND WE DON'T NEED YOUR FUCKING CHARITY, BRAT."

Squalo Superbi brushed past Yamamoto in a flurry of unchecked rage and ridiculously long silver hair: the Varia commander did not greet the other swordsman, although he did spare him a disdainful look before disappearing down the hallway. Yamamoto turned to watch Squalo leave, and then stuck his head in through the doorway.

"…Did I come at a bad time?"

"Of course not! Squalo's always like that."

Sawada Tsunayoshi was slumped over his desk, wearing the sort of expression carried by a man who had just pulled a whole day at work and sat through hour upon hour of traffic in the pouring rain only to crawl into bed and discover that there was a leak over his pillow, dripping down with pinpoint precision to the spot right between his eyes. The brunette, however, smiled at Yamamoto, lifted his hand in a half-hearted gesture, and beckoned the other man into his office.

"What was that about?"

"Ah… all the usual stuff, really. Funding, support… the Varia hasn't exactly been cooperative since the Ninth retired."

Yamamoto was not surprised to hear that. The Varia had been the Vongola None's elite squadron of assassins, headed by Xanxus, the adopted son of the Ninth and once Tsuna's biggest contender for the seat of the boss in the family. Tsuna and his Guardians, however, had imprisoned Xanxus once again after his coup d'etat attempt when they were in middle school. Since then, Squalo – the Sword Emperor of the underworld, and Xanxus' right hand man – was the leader of the group in his commander's place.

Because they firmly believed that Xanxus was the real Tenth of the Vongola, Squalo and the other members of the Varia moved independently from the rest of the family, insisting on Tsuna's illegitimacy as boss and taking no missions beyond whatever they happened to find interesting. That did not, however, stop Tsuna from attempting to stay in contact with them, and offering them missions that benefited both the Varia and the Vongola. Due to his close correspondence with Lussuria, Ryohei was the family's official liaison with the group. Back when he was still gunrunning with the family, however, Yamamoto had occasionally been called upon to talk to the Varia in Ryohei's place. Squalo appeared to be more receptive to Yamamoto, especially when it came to delicate (Xanxus-related) issues.

"Anyway, let's forgot about that for now… I mean, you just got back!" Tsuna was smiling at Yamamoto as he hastily cleared his desk. "How are you? I'm sorry I wasn't able to greet you the night you came around. It's been crazy down here!"

"Well, you _are_ getting married, boss," Yamamoto returned with a smile. "How's that been treating you?"

"Um… to be honest, I really don't know. I guess it'll hit me later."

Tsuna was getting That Look again, the one that crept unto his face whenever something Kyoko-related or Kyoko herself came up. Briefly, Yamamoto remembered Gokudera. He was not, however, given much time to dwell on it, for Tsuna was already moving on.

"Have you seen the others yet?"

_Have you seen Gokudera?_

Tsuna did not have to say the words. Yamamoto had known his boss long enough to be able to figure out what the other man was REALLY asking about, just by studying the look in his eyes. Yamamoto ran a hand through his hair and down and scratched the back of his neck, putting on a sheepish look. He could play the idiot a little longer, he figured, because he knew that Tsuna was not going to push him.

"Just Ryohei and Kyouya, actually."

"I see. Well," Tsuna declared, just a tad louder than necessary, "there's still a lot of time for that sort of thing! Have you showed yourself to Reborn yet? He's been asking about you lately."

"I was going to, but then he found me first… came to my room and dragged me out and all, before I had the chance to wander around."

"I should have known," Tsuna sighed. "I hope he didn't beat you up?"

"Nope! Got out of it totally unharmed~"

"Really?" The shock was plain in Tsuna's voice. "Huh. That's… oddly nice of him." a pause, and then an amused snort. "He must be feeling his age these days—"

The loud crash of Tsuna's door blowing wide open made the young mafioso freeze, and Yamamoto noted, with some amusement, the split second of pure terror in Tsuna's eyes before they realized that the one who had barged in WASN'T Reborn.

"Little brother I need to talk to you about stu OH HEY THERE YAMAMOTO DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE HERE."

Ryohei was the same bundle of energy that he had been when Yamamoto had first spotted him at the airport, all laughs and loudness and back-thumping. It did not last for very long, though, not while it was clear that the boxer had come around on business.

"Did the Varia come around as scheduled, boss?"

"Yeah…"

Tsuna trailed off, his gaze shifting from Ryohei's suddenly serious face to Yamamoto – he was hesitating, unsure of whether he could afford to push business back in order to entertain his friend or if he ought to get right down to things, the way he used to before Yamamoto's temporary departure from _their _world. Yamamoto knew what he was thinking, of course: he had not spent the a good part of the last ten years of his life close to his boss, and even closer to the one who walked where Tsuna walked, breathed when Tsuna breathed.

"Should I leave?"

"No, no!" Tsuna wrung his hands, looking frantic and more than a little embarrassed; it looked as though Yamamoto wasn't the only one who needed to readjust to having the Rain Guardian back in the game. "You should know about this just as much as Ryohei and I do, I think."

"Superbi and the rest of the Varia have been more difficult than usual for good reason lately," Ryohei explained, drawing Yamamoto's attention towards him. "Little brother has started talks with the Vendicare, and the other members of the Big Five. The Family intends to release Xanxus from his prison by next summer."

* * *

_The Rose Garden._

Since the Family had started their operation to set the future right and ended up permanently relocating to Italy to see it through, it had become a habit of hers to visit the gardens upon waking, to wander barefoot across the grassy fields, among the manicured bushes and the flower beds, under the shade of ancient trees. Although she was the Mist Guardian of the Vongola, and the woman closest to the Tenth beyond his Consigliore and his very own fiancé, she knew that she was ultimately an outsider: she was naturally associated with Rokudo Mukuro, and there wasn't a soul in the mafia game who was unaware of the things that he had done in the past. Her morning walks, though, made her feel like she belonged, almost. While she was content, for the most part, with remaining in limbo, perpetually on call in a neither-here-nor-there sort of place, there were always times when she needed to anchor down and retreat to before the burden of being nobody became too much for her to bear.

In the recent years, however, Chrome did much more than haunt the gardens with her presence. At least once a week, in fact, the young woman rose with the sun, dressed into something light and easy to move around in, and, after fetching a pair of heavy gloves and other tools from the gardener's shed, took it upon herself to tend to the flowers.

"_Ta jie!"_

Chrome looked up from the rose she had been inspecting in time to see I-pin running towards her; the girl paused a moment to catch her breath the moment she was close enough, and then bounced right back up on her heels to flash the Mist Guardian with a brilliant smile. There were grass stains on her cheeks, and the white cotton of her pants.

"Good morning, _ta jie_."

"Good morning. Were you training by the lagoon?"

"Yes! I was unable to the other day." I-pin leaned in, studying the rose that was cupped gently within Chrome's palm. "How is it now?"

"Much better. Changing the soil helped this bush a lot, I think." Chrome lifted the pair of clippers she held in her other hand and snipped off a rotten leaf before moving on to another rose. "I shall have to remember to ask the gardeners to take note of the mix."

"Mm!" Gardening was, beyond cooking food, one of the hobbies that Chrome now had in common with I-pin: the two of them tended to the flowers growing on the Vongola Estate together, whenever they had the chance to. "I'll go in and change so that I can help—"

I-Pin's cut off with a startled squeak; the girl had flushed beet red, and was now rooted to the spot, staring, wide-eyed, off into the distance. Chrome blinked and considered asking her what was wrong, but she soon discovered for herself, the moment she turned and followed the other's gaze.

A black car emblazoned with the seal of the Foundation had pulled up at the curb: Kusakabe had stepped out of the front seat, and was moving around to open the door for none other than Hibari Kyouya himself. The man was conversing with someone over his mobile in quick, irritated Chinese: a language that Chrome only understood bits and pieces of for the moment. She knew enough, though, to figure out that her fellow Guardian was closing a deal.

Kusakabe greeted them at that moment, drawing Chrome's attention away from Hibari – the man had moved forward to see them, after sending the driver off with new orders.

"Dokuro-san, I-pin. It is good to see the both of you again."

"When did you return?"

"Three days ago, actually. Kyo-san had some business to attend to in Venice, though, so… here we are again."

"Need you be so familiar with them?" Hibari snapped, as he came around – the cellular phone was gone, replaced by a box weapon that the man was now tossing about with one hand, catching with rhythmic, lazy twists of his wrist. A nervous – or more like, restless twitch. "What I do with my time is no business of theirs."

"Of course," Kusakabe acquiesced, indulgent as always. Hibari flashed him a narrow-eyed, displeased look before turning his ire towards Chrome.

"Dokuro Chrome."

"Cloud."

His gaze sliced over her like a knife, and she inclined her head, returning his gaze without flinching. Another terse pause, and he turned away. That was that. Just eight years ago, their exchange might have ended in a fight.

Briefly, Rokudo Mukuro came to mind.

"Dismissed, Tetsu." Hibari was moving away, having lost all interest in the crowd gathered before him. "Do not dawdle for too long."

"Yes, Kyo-san. Were you able to compile the records that I asked for last week?" Kusakabe asked of I-pin, turning to the girl as soon as Hibari was gone. "I'll be needing that info very soon."

"Y-y-yes!" I-pin had apparently managed to regain enough control of herself to dip down into a low bow, but not enough to keep from stammering. Hibari's presence, Chrome had realized over the years, had a rather peculiar effect on her. Kusakabe did not appear to notice.

"Excellent. Can you show me what you've done so far?"

"O… of course!" I-pin then turned and bowed low to Chrome. "My deepest apologies, _ta jie_. I-it seems as though I have work to do now."

"It's all right. We'll see each other at dinner anyway."

I-pin beamed, relieved at the easy dismissal. "I'll go ahead!" the girl announced, before turning about and rounding off. Chrome watched her go before turning back to Kusakabe.

"Will Hibari-san be joining us?"

(She was asking, of course, out of courtesy and not out of any real interest.)

"I believe he is," Kusakabe thoughtfully returned. "It'll be the first with all of the Guardians complete in the past three years, to my understanding." The look in his eyes was different now, as he regarded Chrome. She, of course, knew exactly why, and answered the question that she knew Kusakabe would never voice out loud.

"Yes… it will be."

* * *

_Meanwhile, back inside the Estate._

Ryohei was the last out of the two to leave, and that was mostly because he had wanted to talk a whole lot about how lovely Hana was lately and Tsuna was more than happy to indulge him. Reborn had spent the last decade and then some attempting to make a man out of his student, and his definition of "being a man" included the disregard of useless frivolities, but that never stopped Tsuna from going behind his old mentor's back at every opportunity and listening to the silly nothings of his Guardians. They were, after all, his friends long before they had ever been his comrades-in-arms, "family" long before they had ever become "Family".

Of course, another "useless frivolity" was the cumulative set of quiet little nothings that he managed to snag in his office, whenever he was lounging about between one ginormous stack of things-to-sign and the next with nothing to keep him company beyond a sunlight streaming through his windows and a cup of perfectly brewed coffee. Tsuna leaned back and sipped from the cup at his leisure, tired but oddly content. He was the Tenth, the one and only "boss" around those parts – something or someone was bound to come around soon enough and demand his attention. Before that, though…

"Wasting time by acting like an herbivore again, Sawada?"

Well. Tsuna chuckled, unshaken by the cutting words. He set the cup down, and squared his gaze up, to meet with Hibari Kyouya's steel gray eyes.

"Welcome back, Hibari-san. I wasn't expecting you back so soon."

A light scoff from the shadowed corner by the door. Tsuna only smiled again.

Some things never changed.

Tsuna stood up, smoothed his coat and pants out, shuffled towards the snack table at the far end of the room. He was perfectly at home with the fact that the gaze of his most mercurial Guardian and harshest critic was on him, watching his every move.

"Care for a cup of coffee?"

***

The conversation had not lasted very long, but it had been enough to leave Yamamoto with the very sudden urge to walk around and think about absolutely nothing heavy for the rest of the day. He had known, of course, long before Reborn had ever called him right before the last game of the season, that things were picking up in the mafia game, and if he didn't scramble back and return to being on top of things soon he'd likely drown the moment he came back home, to Italy. He had thought that he was ready before he had left Japan, because the past three years had been busy in a good way, filled with the sort of quiet that only normal people had the privilege of experiencing.

It hurt him just a little, realizing that he wasn't as ready as he thought he was, and that in spite of the fact that he wasn't rusty in the least on the battlefield and hadn't forgotten how to be a good and proper mafioso off of it, he was still walking back into a lot of _other_ things blind.

He didn't really mean to end up in the library – his feet had sort of just taken him wherever they had wanted, following, in real time, the flow of his thoughts. As such, Yamamoto blinked at his surroundings in a sort of dull daze for a few moments before figuring what the heck, it's been a while, maybe he could find something decent to read? The Rain Guardian immediately made a beeline for the shelves that contained the fiction titles in the family's collection, accompanied by nothing else but the sound of his own footsteps against the varnished wood floor. He was likely alone in the place, he figured, because it was late in the morning: most of the big readers in the estate were likely out on jobs, and the maids only came around to clean at dawn. As such, he wasn't entirely prepared for the moment he turned the corner and looked up, to the sight of Gokudera Hayato in front of a book case three times his height with a stack of books cradled under one arm, returning them, one title at a time, to their rightful place on the shelves.

Three years of distance, of walking away, of staying everywhere except exactly where he belonged, and seeing all the tiny little somethings that made up the only person who mattered more than life itself never failed to take his breath away.

"Hayato."

"…Yamamoto."

Three years, and those green eyes still looked the way they did on the rooftop of their school: sharp and raw and shuttered, keeping everything out, keeping Yamamoto miles apart from where he wanted to be. Distance, however, had taught him how to take everything in, bury the bad things deep, and show the good things to whoever came his way, like there was absolutely nothing wrong at all.

"Long time, no see."


End file.
